Wives do 80% of married couples’ housework

Korean wives spend nearly five times more of their day on housework than their spouses, a survey showed Thursday.

According to a survey conducted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, women spent about 3 1/2 hours on daily housework on average, while men spent only 43 minutes last year, showing a 4.6-fold difference.

For women, the housework time accounted for 41 percent of their daily duties -- hours they spend on obligatory activities such as career work or domestic affairs. The women’s duty time recorded eight hours and three minutes last year.

Men, however, spent less than 10 percent of their duty time on household affairs. The overall daily duty time of men was seven hours and 51 minutes.

Men tended to spend half of their duty time on their career, while women spent only about 20 percent of their duty time on jobs.

The perception toward traditional gender roles also differed by gender.

More than 40 percent of men approved of traditional gender roles, while only about 28 percent of women did so. The rest of the women opposed the increasingly old-fashioned perception of gender roles.

Husbands, however, interestingly, spent more time cooking than ever before.

The surveyed men said that they spent about eight minutes a day on average cooking last year, three minutes longer than 2013.

Wives, on the other hand, spent 71 minutes a day on average, up only one minute on-year.

About 65 percent of total respondents said they did not have enough time to rest and enjoy hobbies.

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