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Norwegian men most helpful with housework, OECD survey finds

by Reuters
Thursday, 6 March 2014 17:52 GMT

In this 2007 file photo a couple sunbathes on the edge of a frozen fjord in the Norwegian Arctic town of Longyearbyen. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/Files

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In a comparison of statistics from most of the 34 OECD member countries concerning how much time adults of each sex spend on what the OECD calls "unpaid work", the organisation concluded that "women are slowly closing the gap with men as more have careers"

March 6 (Reuters) - Norwegian men pitch in the most with housework and related chores while Japanese men do the least in a survey released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ahead of International Women's Day on Saturday.

In a comparison of statistics from most of the 34 OECD member countries concerning how much time adults of each sex spend on what the OECD calls "unpaid work", the organisation concluded that "women are slowly closing the gap with men as more have careers".

"But there is still a huge gender gap in unpaid work, clearly showing that men are still struggling to lift much more than a finger from time to time in some countries," the Paris-based OECD said in a press release.

It said that Turkish women spend the most time of any country in the survey doing unpaid chores such as housework or shopping, clocking up 377 minutes a day, while their male partners spend 116 minutes a day on such tasks.

Japanese men, who are the most unhelpful in this regard, spend 62 minutes a day on unpaid chores while their spouses devote almost 300 minutes a day.

And although Norwegian men spend 180 minutes a day doing housework and the like, their female partners still spend more time at it, putting in 210 minutes a day, the survey said.

On the flip side, the survey found that "northern Europeans are the queens of leisure", with women in Norway spending more time relaxing and entertaining than anyone else, at 367 minutes a day, followed by British women who spend 339 minutes a day.

The OECD said the data was taken from national time-use surveys from 2005 onwards, based on representative samples of up to 20,000 people. (Writing by Michael Roddy,; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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