MOVE over domestic goddess, here comes the new “new man”. Men are doing almost twice as much housework as they did in 1961, according to a study of how the British spend their time, while women are spending less time on chores, writes John Elliott.

Time-and-motion studies show that men are putting in 146 minutes of “unpaid” work a day, compared with 83 in the early 1960s.

They spend half an hour a day cooking and washing up, compared with 10 minutes in 1961, and 39 minutes a day travelling to shops and shopping, compared with 11 minutes in 1961. Their other unpaid chores include taking children to school, cleaning, household repairs and administration.

For all the talk of new dads wanting to spend time with their offspring, however, childcare comes relatively low on the list. According to the study, men spend 16 minutes on childcare, although that is a big increase on the three minutes they spent in 1961.

Professor Jonathan Gershuny, who details the comparisons in studies published this month by the Institute of Social and Economic Research at Essex University, said while men and women were “converging” in the way they spent their time, men still lagged behind women in terms of domestic labour.

“Men are doing a lot more than before,” he said, “but women still do twice as much. Men do more cooking, but clothes washing and ironing are still dominated by women.”

The studies, based on “time-use” diaries of 2,400 people in 1961 and 6,414 people in 2001, show that women still do 277 minutes of “unpaid” work a day compared with 303 minutes in 1961.

They have reduced time spent cooking and washing up from 115 minutes in 1961 to 71 minutes. While the average woman does more paid work, she has also found time for more shopping, rising from 38 minutes to an hour a day.

Martin Godfrey, 49, a GP from Kennington, south London, said the studies broadly reflected the differences between his family life as a boy in the 1960s and the way he, his wife Karen and their two sons — Cameron, six, and Theo, two — live now.

“I am much more involved than my father was — I am a regular nappy changer,” he said. “ My parents had a fairly classic division of labour — he was working and she did most of the looking after us.”

Gershuny’s studies also show how family members now tend to “do their own thing”, eating fewer meals together. In 1961, at 1.30pm on a Sunday 33% of people were eating at home compared with 8% now.

“The old rituals have gone — people used to get up, make breakfast and eat together, not now,” he said.

In Spain a law was introduced earlier this year that men should “share domestic responsibilites”. Those who fail can be penalised by judges in divorce settlements. Forty per cent of Spanish men reportedly do no housework at all.

A Spanish inventor has also devised a washing machine with a fingerprint sensor to ensure that the same person does not operate it twice to force couples to share laundy chores.

The Essex study shows women spend less time on household chores but do more paid work. For men, despite present day complaints over long hours, the increase in domestic and other unpaid work is more than compensated for by a decline in paid work. Domestic gods? Not quite yet.

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