Housework is still women's work in Austria

Among men, only about a third of those surveyed felt responsible for cleaning. For 23%, a clean car was more important than a clean home.

In Austria, cleaning and housework are still mostly women's jobs. In a survey of 1,000 Austrians commissioned by home appliance manufacturer Vorwerk, 70 percent of women felt responsible for cleaning their homes. For 23% of men surveyed, a clean car was more important than a clean house, according to a press release.

Among men, only about a third (35%) of those surveyed felt responsible for cleaning. By the way, there was no difference between generations. Male representatives of Generation Z are the same grumpy, cleaning-up people as their baby boomer counterparts. “Unfortunately, the unequal distribution of housework among Austrian families is not a big surprise. However, the fact that there is no difference between generations is very surprising,” said Philipp Kammerer from Vorwerk.

An additional burden on women

The fact that household chores largely fall into the hands of women also increases the burden on women. While less than a quarter of men surveyed (23 per cent) found the burden of daily housework to be very to somewhat heavy, the same figure was found for more than one in three women (36 per cent). When it came to the popularity of cleaning, women and men agreed exceptionally well: 60 percent of those surveyed (64 percent men, 55 percent women) didn't like cleaning at all. Nearly three-quarters of women (73%) said they cleaned alone, while 46% of men surveyed only did so with their partners.

But not everything related to housework is bad: the most popular household activity among Austrians in the survey was cooking (42 percent), followed by vacuuming (30 percent).