Now that more and more women are going to work, are men doing more of the housework

asks Modge:
A. Erm, no. The biggest-ever study of male behaviour (carried out by the Office of National Statistics recently) shows that your average male does about as much housework as he did 30 years ago, when women liberation campaigners were burning their bras in protest.

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Q. How much housework is that
A. Less than a quarter of the routine housework and cooking.

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Q. What are they doing with their time
A. Men tend to spend more time eating out, gardening and watching television. And, of course, they'll spend more time at the office.

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The survey found that a third of men with dependent children work 50 hours a week - much more than men who don't have children.

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Q. Is that because they need to earn more money, or do they just want to avoid their children
A. The survey wasn't very clear on that point. However, the result is that men who work long hours spend an average of 45 minutes caring for and playing with their children each day.

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Q. It's not much, is it
A. No. But possibly worse is the fact that working women only spend twice as much time with their children.

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Well, at least they're earning a decent wage these days...
Not really. On average, men earn twice as much as women: according to the study, the average gross income for British men was �247 a week, compared with �119 for women.

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Q. But I thought women were leaving school with better academic qualifications than men these days
A. They are. And they take up more than half the places on university undergraduate courses. But any achievements are undermined by the impact of family and child-rearing.

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Q. Basically, nothing much has changed, then
A. The biggest change is that men today are more likely to be separated, divorced or co-habiting. More men are stepfathers today and are likely to take some part in fathering the children of their partner's previous relationship.

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Q. What can women do to get men doing more housework
A. They could let this little bit of information drop into the conversation sometime: according to a study by US psychologists, there is a connection between sex and housework - women find men who are willing to do their share of the housework erotic!

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By Sheena Miller

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