Oddly, though the work type has changed, there’s only about 5 hours less a week of housework than there was in 1900. Heck that’s less then 45 minutes a day difference, even with everything you mentioned.
I agree the work is far less physically demanding, but modern standards dictate about the same amount of time burden, the difference lies mainly in that men have picked up 13 more of those hours a week, and that it’s more rare for only one adult to work outside the home.
Looking at the actual study, something suspicious is this, from Table 3:
1920s farmwives reported spending only 3.9 hours per week taking care of children and adults. That’s less than an hour a day. Does that really sound reasonable? A child can be ignored except for a brief, less than 1 hour period each day? My guess is that in the 1920s tthere was a lot of X+childcare. Like, making a meal while also keeping tabs on the children, maybe holding one on the hip if it was too young, or having them help out if they were old enough. Or, something similar while cleaning or mending clothing. This wouldn’t show up in extra hours of work done. But, it would make the work more challenging and less fun. It’s often fun to cook for people. It’s much less fun to cook for people while also wrangling multiple kids at the same time.
Another big difference between 1920 and 1965 is that time spent “Purchasing, management, travel, other” went way up. Purchasing, i.e. shopping, is clearly something that has to be done. But, it is also sometimes a leisure activity. If you just purely count it as housework, then mindlessly scrolling for things on amazon.com is a household chore.
The paper is really short on details. I’d like to see what the breakdown of tasks actually was. If “housework” includes things like reading a kid a bedtime story, scrolling for deals on amazon, and going to a kid’s soccer game, then sure I can imagine that “housework” hasn’t really gone down. But, I think the reality is that the true “work” part of housework really has gone down.
In Table 3, the only one that actually breaks down activity by time and compares different time periods, the latest date mentioned is 1965, 60 years ago. I think even by 1965 the amount of drudge work was down by a lot. But, I imagine that it has also gone down much, much more in 2025.
The hours taking care of children thing seems very small to me as well, but there was a lot less to raising kids back then.
Parents weren’t expected to participate in educational or self-esteem raising play specifically for their kids. Sure, playing blocks with my daughter is better than scrubbing on a washboard, But it’s not something I would pick to do without her. Parents are spending way more time with their kids than they were in the '70s, so I can’t imagine how much of what we would consider neglect today was happening in 1900. It’s still a chore. This is about time, not difficulty. I’m not arguing that things aren’t better now. I’m just arguing that we don’t have a lot more time.
And I don’t know if you manage your household, but scrolling on Amazon for the thing you need sucks. I don’t like doing it, and it absolutely counts as a chore. I wish it was someone else’s job. I’m not saying it’s hard, but it is not leisure. Emptying and filling the dishwasher are both very easy tasks, but they’re not leisure. Our chores are way easier, but they still occupy a crazy amount of time considering how little time we have. Part of that is because our houses are bigger which is definitely nicer, but part of why our houses are bigger is because our communities are smaller/ non-existent.
It’s all trade-offs, but frankly I’m pretty sick of the argument that because things are better than they were in the past. We should all just be happy and satisfied with things that are crappy.
Immediate edit:
And saying that shopping is a leisure activity so it’s not work… I don’t think they’re talking about going out window shopping downtown in the chore section. Pretty sure they’re just talking about household management shopping. I’m surprised that has gone up, except for when you add travel… That’s commute. I’m 0% surprised that has gone way up.
Oddly, though the work type has changed, there’s only about 5 hours less a week of housework than there was in 1900. Heck that’s less then 45 minutes a day difference, even with everything you mentioned.
I agree the work is far less physically demanding, but modern standards dictate about the same amount of time burden, the difference lies mainly in that men have picked up 13 more of those hours a week, and that it’s more rare for only one adult to work outside the home.
https://www.nber.org/digest/oct08/hours-spent-homemaking-have-changed-little-century?page=1&perPage=50
That seems extremely hard to believe to me.
Looking at the actual study, something suspicious is this, from Table 3:
1920s farmwives reported spending only 3.9 hours per week taking care of children and adults. That’s less than an hour a day. Does that really sound reasonable? A child can be ignored except for a brief, less than 1 hour period each day? My guess is that in the 1920s tthere was a lot of X+childcare. Like, making a meal while also keeping tabs on the children, maybe holding one on the hip if it was too young, or having them help out if they were old enough. Or, something similar while cleaning or mending clothing. This wouldn’t show up in extra hours of work done. But, it would make the work more challenging and less fun. It’s often fun to cook for people. It’s much less fun to cook for people while also wrangling multiple kids at the same time.
Another big difference between 1920 and 1965 is that time spent “Purchasing, management, travel, other” went way up. Purchasing, i.e. shopping, is clearly something that has to be done. But, it is also sometimes a leisure activity. If you just purely count it as housework, then mindlessly scrolling for things on amazon.com is a household chore.
The paper is really short on details. I’d like to see what the breakdown of tasks actually was. If “housework” includes things like reading a kid a bedtime story, scrolling for deals on amazon, and going to a kid’s soccer game, then sure I can imagine that “housework” hasn’t really gone down. But, I think the reality is that the true “work” part of housework really has gone down.
In Table 3, the only one that actually breaks down activity by time and compares different time periods, the latest date mentioned is 1965, 60 years ago. I think even by 1965 the amount of drudge work was down by a lot. But, I imagine that it has also gone down much, much more in 2025.
The hours taking care of children thing seems very small to me as well, but there was a lot less to raising kids back then.
Parents weren’t expected to participate in educational or self-esteem raising play specifically for their kids. Sure, playing blocks with my daughter is better than scrubbing on a washboard, But it’s not something I would pick to do without her. Parents are spending way more time with their kids than they were in the '70s, so I can’t imagine how much of what we would consider neglect today was happening in 1900. It’s still a chore. This is about time, not difficulty. I’m not arguing that things aren’t better now. I’m just arguing that we don’t have a lot more time.
And I don’t know if you manage your household, but scrolling on Amazon for the thing you need sucks. I don’t like doing it, and it absolutely counts as a chore. I wish it was someone else’s job. I’m not saying it’s hard, but it is not leisure. Emptying and filling the dishwasher are both very easy tasks, but they’re not leisure. Our chores are way easier, but they still occupy a crazy amount of time considering how little time we have. Part of that is because our houses are bigger which is definitely nicer, but part of why our houses are bigger is because our communities are smaller/ non-existent.
It’s all trade-offs, but frankly I’m pretty sick of the argument that because things are better than they were in the past. We should all just be happy and satisfied with things that are crappy.
Immediate edit: And saying that shopping is a leisure activity so it’s not work… I don’t think they’re talking about going out window shopping downtown in the chore section. Pretty sure they’re just talking about household management shopping. I’m surprised that has gone up, except for when you add travel… That’s commute. I’m 0% surprised that has gone way up.