London - The great dispute over who does the household chores has for decades fuelled the battle of the sexes.
But even in our age of gender equality, it is women who are still far more likely to lose out.
For they do more housework than men in 93 percent of British households, a study has revealed.
And even when both partners work full-time, women are five times more likely to spend 20 or more hours a week doing housework than men. The study of more than 8 500 British couples also found that, when children have grown up and left home, nearly half of men get away with doing less than five hours of chores a week - compared with only eight percent of women.
And when women do manage to escape the heavy lifting it is because they are the main breadwinner - though this only occurs in seven percent of households.
Professor Anne McMunn, who led the University College London study, said: "These results matter because this is extra work which women are doing for free - as housework is unpaid. We don’t think this is an active choice on the part of men to try to keep women down.
"But even these days it still tends to be the case that if there is something which needs doing in the home, women just do it."
She said couples tend to follow patterns set by parents when they are growing up, but added: "This has been described as a 'second shift' for women, who come home from work and start doing more in the form of household chores."