According to an IMAS study on International Women’s Day, more than half of the country’s people living in couples are familiar with “procrastination”. The majority of unloved tasks are still carried out by women, although the distribution corresponds to gender stereotypes. Women wash, iron and cook, men take care of the car and repairs, this is what the survey by the IMAS Institute summarized at the end of the previous year, in which 1,011 Austrians, 557 of whom were married or living in a partnership, were representative of the population 16 years old, were interviewed personally. Despite a certain social change, “a certain distribution of roles in housework in partner households seems to be almost frozen and unchanged,” concludes IMAS. The survey reflects the current situation well, as the answers from both genders were largely the same.
“Women’s thing”
Over 70 percent of women said that they wash and iron the laundry, around 60 percent cook, clean the windows and wash the dishes, and more than half of the women use the vacuum cleaner themselves. This corresponds to the answers from men, of whom only ten percent claimed to do this. In some households, these tasks are done together, by another person, or with outside help.
“Men’s thing”
A good third to half of couples do shopping, disposing of rubbish, cleaning the balcony or terrace, watering flowers and gardening together. Men predominantly take care of gender-typical tasks: 62 percent wash the car, 42 percent mow the lawn and 46 percent do household repairs. Here too, women unanimously stated that these activities were done by their partners, with 66 percent of women believing that their husbands repair things, while only 46 percent of men said this and 18 and 10 percent respectively said that someone else or external parties did this Get help done.
Creativity in excuses
In addition to fatigue and more important things as the most popular excuses, “the cross”, lack of time, general malaise and headaches as well as incompetence (“I can’t do that, I’m too clumsy for it”) have to be used as an excuse when housework is required. Around 30 to 40 percent of those surveyed have heard this from time to time, but only around 20 percent are aware of allergies as protection once morest unwanted tasks. It must also be noted that the majority of 50 to 60 or 75 percent are completely unaware of these excuses.
