Study: Men who make more money do fewer chores

A Muslim caretaker at a mosque in India sweeps up

(Image credit: Allison Joyce/Getty Images)

published 6 February 2015

A new study published in the journal Work, Employment, and Society found that men who make more money than their wives or girlfriends tend to help less around the house.

Even in households where women made more money, though, women still did the majority of chores. Study author Clare Lyonette of the Warwick Institute for Employment Research attributed the findings to the "myth of male incompetence," where women accept that men are bad at doing chores.

Of course, the study's sample size wasn't huge, either — Lyonette only interviewed 36 women and 12 men. All of the respondents worked full-time and had at least one child under the age of 14. Interestingly, though, almost all of the respondents agreed that men and women should, theoretically, share chores equally.