Women still do more housework than men.
According to a survey of couples in the United Kingdom, they spend about 10 hours more per week on household chores than men.
But your partner's relative weight also affects how much housework you do: the slimmer you are compared to your partner, the more chores you do.
“There is a gender gap in housework, because women spend almost ten hours more per week than men,” the researchers write in the Review of Economics of the Household. 'We also find that a relatively higher BMI is associated with a lower share of housework.'
The researchers used a database of 10,300 people aged 18 to 65, living in around 5,000 homes in the UK. For their analysis, they used data collected from 3,331 couples.
Women still do more housework than men. According to a survey of couples in the UK, they spend around 10 hours more per week on household chores than men (file image)
The results show that men do 6.13 hours of housework per week, while women spend 15.84 hours (file image)
The results show that men do 6.13 hours of housework per week, while women spend 15.84 hours.
The hours spent on chores were also found to be affected by the couple's relative weight.
On average, the BMI (body mass index) of the men and women in the couples in the study was about the same: about 26. BMI is a measure of weight in relation to height.
The researchers found that when one partner was heavier than the other, the less housework they did.
An increase in their BMI by one unit leads to an eight percent decrease in the household indicator, a measure of the share of housework.
The results held true for couples where both men and women worked, and for couples where only one worked.
The findings contradict a compensation effect theory, which states that people with what are considered negative traits, such as greater weight, make more effort to compensate.
Previous research has shown that spouses with a higher BMI compensate their partners by increasing the amount of paid work. The researchers found no evidence that partners with a higher BMI did more paid work.
It is unclear why heavier partners do less unpaid housework and lighter partners do more. It may simply be, the researchers suggest, that chores are physically demanding.
“We find that a relatively higher BMI is associated with a lower share of housework,” say the researchers from the University of Zaragoza, Spain.
“One could argue that this compensatory mechanism in marriage causes spouses with a higher BMI to do more housework if they marry slimmer spouses than if they are married to spouses who are also overweight.”
They add: 'On the contrary, a higher BMI may be associated with less housework, because overweight and obesity are associated with a decline in physical functioning, and household chores are physically demanding.'