Wives less happy than husbands in marriage

South Korean men are more satisfied with their spouses than women are, the main reason being the wives shouldering more household chores than the husbands, a public survey showed Wednesday.

According to a survey conducted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government last year, 73.2 percent of surveyed husbands in the capital responded that they are content with their spouses, with 40 percent being very satisfied. For wives, however, only 62.6 percent said they are satisfied with their husbands.

Over 10 percent of women said they are unsatisfied with their counterparts, more than double men’s dissatisfaction level toward wives, officials said.

The two-week survey was conducted with some 4,400 Seoul residents as the country marks National Spouse Day on Thursday, they said. 

At 58 percent, men were also more content with their parents-in-law than women were, the survey added. This is 12.5 percent higher than the women’s satisfaction toward their parents-in-law.

The survey also showed that housework was not equally shared despite both parties acknowledging of the need for equivalent work shares.

About 53 percent of women and 44 percent of men agreed that chores should be equally shared, as more wives tend to continue their career after marriage.

In reality, however, only 15.4 percent of the surveyed couples replied that they shoulder the housework together. About 24 percent said that wives mostly take charges of domestic work.

Among double-income couples, only 20 percent said they take care of the household chores together, while 23 percent said that only the wife does all the domestic work.

During weekends, around 50 percent of both men and women picked watching TV as the most common activity. For the second-most common activity, husbands chose “taking a rest” while wives said “doing household work,” with 40.6 percent and 44 percent, respectively. Only 13.8 percent of men said they do the housework on weekends.

Meanwhile, the data also showed that more respondents prefer double income families.

About 45 percent replied that women should continue to work regardless of marriage or domestic workloads. This is nearly a 16 percent jump compared to 1998, officials said.

While around 70 percent of both parties responded that they have experienced career stress, more women tended to suffer from housework stress with 51.3 percent, higher by 13.5 percent than that of husbands, the survey said.

By Lee Hyun-jeong  (rene@heraldcorp.com)