Australian men are not doing any more housework than they were 20 years ago, and women are doing 50% more housework than men, a national study has revealed.
Now in its 19th iteration, the annual Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (Hilda) report uses data collected over more than two decades, with the same 17,000 people interviewed year-on-year.
The latest report shows that, in 2022, men spent an average of 12.8 hours on housework, the same amount of time as they were spending in 2002. Women, comparatively, spent an average of 18.4 hours a week on housework.
On top of this, financial inequality in Australia is at its highest since 2001 and things are getting harder for single parents, who have seen a 76% increase in childcare costs per child since 2006.
Men still not picking up the housework
The analysis found both men and women are spending more time in paid work than they were 20 years ago. Women in 2022 averaged 28.5 hours a week in employment (compared with 22.2 hours in 2002) while men spent 37.9 hours (up from 37.7 in 2002).
Men are spending 30 minutes more caring for their children and disabled or elderly relatives (5.5 hours a week in 2022, up from 5 hours in 2002), but the report said this has not been a continuous upwards trend. The peak, 6.1 hours, was in 2014.
In 2022, women still took on most of the caring duties – almost double the amount of men – with 10.7 hours a week caring in 2022, an increase on the 10.1 hours spent in 2002.
The report also shows men are more satisfied than women with the division of unpaid work.
Men’s satisfaction with the division of labour was high until the pandemic hit, when it started to decline before reaching an all-time low of 7.6 out of 10 for the division of housework tasks and 7.7 out of 10 for the division of childcare.
The majority of men believed they did their fair share around the house, the report said, with 58% of childless men and 55.6% of those with dependent children agreeing.
Dr Inga Lass, the report’s author, said the data showed women take over a greater share of housework and care than their male partner in almost every employment scenario.
“While women do significantly more paid work than they used to, this divide of unpaid work at home has not changed significantly since we started measuring in 2002,” she said.
“The survey also allows us to see that men are overall more satisfied than women are with the current division of unpaid work around the house. Most women feel that they do more than their fair share at home, whereas men usually believe they share the housework and care fairly with their partner.”
Inequality at a 20-year high
Financial inequality in Australia is at its highest since the Hilda survey started in 2001, with more than half (51.2%) of respondents saying their real income decreased between 2021 and 2022.
Even when wealth grew very strongly (between 2002 and 2006 and between 2018 and 2022), the proportion of people experiencing a real increase in household wealth did not exceed 73.2%.
It means at least 26.8% likely experienced a decline in real wealth.
While the economic support offered to Australians during the Covid-19 pandemic helped reduced inequality in 2020, the following two years saw a significant uptick.
The Gini index represents a scale between complete equality and complete inequality. If every citizen earned the same amount, that country would have a coefficient of 0. If all of the money was earned by one person, it would be measured as a 1.
In 2022, the Gini coefficient – a common measure of overall inequality – rose above 0.31 for the first time in the survey’s history.
Roger Wilkins, a co-director of the Hilda survey, said the gap between the middle and upper classes was growing.
“After the initial effect of the pandemic, higher incomes in Australia have grown faster relative to middle incomes,” Wilkins said. “At the same time, the relative growth of lower incomes has declined, which drives inequality up and makes it harder for poorer Australians to move into higher income groups.”
Single parents hit the hardest
Single parents have seen a 76% increase in childcare costs per child since 2006, the report found, compared with a 48% increase for couple parents.
Over the 2001-2022 period, single parents were the most likely family type to have poor mental health and took the longest to recover from poor mental health.
The report also found one in four single-parent families live in poverty – more than four times the rate for double-parent families (6.2%).
Problem gambling on the rise
The risk of problem gambling is increasing, with 12.9% of surveyed men classified as “at-risk” gamblers (defined as causing negative consequences and a possible loss of control). That was up from 10.3% in 2015.
In 2015, 5.7% of women identified at least one harmful consequence of their gambling, whereas in 2022 6.4% of women did so.
There was also a 66% increase in the proportion of men who bet on sports in the seven years from 2015 to 2022, the report found.
Fewer people in Australia are using poker machines but those who are were spending significantly more than they were seven years ago – and women are spending more than men. Women spent an average of $284.96 a month gambling on poker machines, with men spending $208.65.
