There’s an article in the Times about a study into the amount of housework men and women do. In comparison with 1961, the time a man has spent has increased from 83 minutes to 146 minutes, whereas women have reduced there time from 303 minutes to 277 minutes.
The article focuses on how men are becoming domestic gods. But look a thte figures in another way. In 1961, couples did 386 minutes ‘unpaid’; house work and in 2005 they do 423 minutes. In 44 years, domestic work has INCREASED by 37 minutes per couple, despite all the labour-saving devices that have been invented. How can that be? What are we doing more of? Now I could be reading it completely worng and there is something far more subtle here that is not reported in this story, probably something like an increase of singles in the study so you can’t just add the numbers.
An intersting aside in the story for me, however, is this:
A Spanish inventor has also devised a washing machine with a fingerprint sensor to ensure that the same person does not operate it twice to force couples to share laundy chores.
There you go, technology applied to ensure that someone can’t pressa button more than once in a row. Wonder if you could apply this to the TV remote?
