while there is a shift in gender roles especially at the work place, at home, the standard kenyan family remains the same: the man goes to work and socialises with his friends while the woman takes care of the household.
however, the findings of a new study suggest that if we want to reduce divorce rates, we need to turn things around. if your man is the typical kenyan man who sits back while you do all the cleaning, then it is time to change things up. apparently, bringing equality to the home is what will keep a couple married for longer.
researchers from stockholm university in sweden studied 3,500 individuals to determine whether distribution of labour at home has an effect on marital satisfaction and stability. they found that women who did most of the housework were deeply unhappy in their relationships and were more likely to dump their partners than women whose partners shared housework with them.
interestingly, even the men in relationships where women did all then housework were dissatisfied. the unhappiest couples were those where the man thought that he was helping around the house but the women felt that she was doing the bulk of it alone.
the researchers thus concluded that a relationship was doomed to fail if one partner took on the extra burden of the housework.
the researchers reckon that if a couple unequally distributes house hold chores, then it definitely reflects badly on the relationship. dividing the house work equally, on the other hand, brings in a sense of stability and happiness. if a woman does the bulk of the housework, then the least a man can do is admit it, or the inequality will have an even stronger negative effect on the relationship.
in a world where both genders are burdened with things that need to be done, the researchers see sharing house chores as a sign of caring for a relationship and for one’s partner.
for happy, long-lasting unions, the researchers recommend that couples share housework equally and if not, then the party that does the least around the house should acknowledge it.
