Division of Household Tasks
Respondents living with at least one other adult were asked who, by gender, was responsible for various tasks in their household. It turns out that in a significant majority of Polish homes only women do the ironing (74%) or the laundry (70%). Additionally, in just over half the households it is women who shoulder the tasks of food preparation (53%) and spring cleaning (51%). Everyday cleaning and tidying are most often undertaken by either person or both (50%), as is washing up or loading and unloading the dishwasher (49%), and everyday shopping (57%). It would, however, be misleading to say these tasks are divided on an equal basis, given that in many households they are performed exclusively by women and in relatively few exclusively by men. The most egalitarian division of the tasks covered by the survey concerns the person who deals with official matters, with 47% of respondents saying that either or both adults do so, while the percentages of exclusively women or exclusively men are comparable (29% and 24%, respectively), though even here women are still more likely to take this on. On the other hand, small repairs are clearly a male preserve (81%), as is hiring someone to do jobs (63%). In over half the households there is no fixed person to take out the rubbish (53%), although where there is one, men now outnumber women (31% to 15%).
