‘Cape women lousy at housework’

Women in the Western Cape spent the least time, only 174 minutes a day, on household maintenance, according to the Stats SA Time Use Survey.

Women in the Western Cape spent the least time, only 174 minutes a day, on household maintenance, according to the Stats SA Time Use Survey.

Published Aug 29, 2013

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Cape Town - If you want a tidy house for the rest of your life, never make a Western Cape woman your wife.

Women in the Western Cape spent the least time, only 174 minutes a day, on household maintenance, while women in the Eastern Cape spent the most time, 219 minutes, according to the Stats SA Time Use Survey released on Wednesday, which contains information on how men and women across the country spend their time.

Household maintenance includes housework, personal and household shopping.

Women in the Western Cape probably spent less time on household work because they were more likely to have jobs than women elsewhere in the country, the survey found.

They also spent more time on community service, seven minutes per day, than women elsewhere in the country, who spent an average of five minutes a day.

Some 82.8 percent worked, compared to 35.1 percent of women in Limpopo and 58.3 percent for the country as a whole.

The survey found that in the Western Cape both men and women spent more time at work than men and women elsewhere in the country.

Among both men and women, the highest mean minutes spent working was in the Western Cape. Men in this province spent an average of 249 minutes per day at work while their female counterparts spent 160 minutes per day on such activities.

In every province men spent more time working than women while women spent more time on household maintenance, care of people and community service than men, the survey found.

Western Cape men spent far less time on housework, (83 minutes) and caring for others (seven minutes), than their female counterparts, who spent 30 minutes each day caring for others.

About 30 000 households, both rural and urban, were surveyed.

Cape Times

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