Sharing chores at home could help economy - Westpac/Deloitte survey

From Checkpoint, 5:29 pm on 17 May 2021

Cooking, cleaning, child rearing - they are the unpaid daily tasks most of us have to do.

A Westpac / Deloitte survey found just 7 percent of heterosexual couples who both worked full-time shared the domestic chores at home.

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Photo: 123RF

It suggested a change to that dynamic meant women do more paid work something that could help close the pay gap.

In central Auckland the general feeling was couples should share the load.

But according to a Westpac-Deloitte survey women on average were taking on more, about nine hours extra a week.

And shifting the balance could come with a major financial boost for the economy to the tune of $1.5 billion.

Westpac's chief executive David McLean said it was a change most wanted.

"Men said that they would like to do more work around the house and women said they wanted to do more paid work."

Westpac commissioned the 2400-person study after finding it was gender pay gap sat at 31 percent.

McLean was surprised to find out why.

"One of the causes of this issue is that men and women generally don't share equally the load around unpaid work at home, particularly when a child is born in the family."

But changing that needed to come from the top.

"Amongst employers we perhaps inadvertently have put policies in place that make it hard and secondly, there's probably things that the government could be doing around rules around parental leave that could provide a more positive incentive."     

The report made four suggestions: normalise flexible work, empower dads to take parental leave, address the cost of childcare and challenge traditional gender norms.

In turn - this could also reduce the gender pay gap.

Feminist economist Prue Hyman praised the study for drawing awareness to the inequity between work and home life for couples.

"It's always worth bringing this stuff up because things change very very slowly."

She said men tend to have greater options while women still pick up the bulk of unpaid work.

But she said a more thorough nationwide study looking at the issue was long overdue to make any sort of claims.

There had not been a study of this type done in more than 20 years, she said.