Why (older) men should do housework

Easy answer, it is good for your health, both physical and mental and it can help your relationship. In a new report Why older men should do more housework, published in January 2018 written by Honor Whiteman and fact-checked by Jasmin Collier, researchers have found that every day, older women spend an average of 2 hours more doing household chores than men. But it's not all bad. Older men and women who engage in more housework might have better health. Though if women get too much or too little sleep, the health benefits of housework diminish.

A new study which was recently published in the journal BMC Public Health was led by Nicholas Adjei and Tilman Brand, of the University of Bremen in Germany.

The research was designed to get a better idea of how adults spend their time in later life, and how certain day-to-day activities impact their health.

"The percentage of those aged 65 years and above," explains study co-leader Adjei, "is increasing globally due to higher life expectancy. It is important to understand how older adults spend their time in these later years and the possible positive and negative implications for their health."

In the study, the team points out that household activities have become the main "productive work" for older adults following retirement, but little is known about how such activities affect health.

After retirement, elderly men and women allocate more time to housework activities, compared to working-age adults. Nonetheless, sleep constitutes the lengthiest time use activity among the elderly, but there has not been any study on the associations between time spent on housework activities, sleep duration and self-reported health among the older population. This study looks at those issues.

The study found a positive association between time devoted to housework activities, total housework and health status among elderly men and women. Compared to those who spent 1 to 3 hours in total on productive housework, elderly people who spent between 3 and 6 hours a day had higher odds of reporting good health

With regard to the number of hours of sleep a night. Those who slept less than 7 hours and those who slept more than 8 hours reported negative health for both genders. However, the interactive associations between total productive housework, sleep duration, and self-reported health varied among men and women. Among women, long hours of housework combined with either short or long sleep was negatively associated with health.

The study concluded that although time allocation to housework activities may be beneficial to the health among both genders, elderly women have higher odds of reporting poor health when more time is devoted total housework combined with either short or long sleep duration.

For many seniors, if you ask, household activities are part of the daily lives of older people. These activities have become their main “productive work” after retirement. A study by Szinovacz found that retirees devoted more time to housework activities than their working spouses. However, evidence suggests that gender inequality in the division of household labour largely persists in high-income societies even after retirement Most studies confirm that elderly women spend more time on housework activities than men although time allocated to housework activities among men has increased over recent years

Older women typically perform routine, repetitive tasks such washing clothes, cooking and cleaning house, while older men are responsible for occasional tasks such as household repair works, vehicle maintenance and yard work. This inequitable division of housework is one of the factors that contribute to the observed adverse health differences among men and women including psychological distress and depressive symptoms.

The study found that between men and women, there was a positive association between housework activities and self-reported health. However, there were differences in the magnitude of the associations. Time devoted to both routine and repetitive housework activities was significantly associated with good health. We observed that elderly people who spent more than 120 min/day on cleaning, cooking and shopping activities had higher odds of reporting good health compared to those who devoted no time to these activities.

Gardening and maintenance activities were associated with higher odds for good health. Older people who spent more than 120 min/day on these activities were more likely to report good health compared to those who did not allocate any time to these activities. The odds of reporting good health were significantly higher for elderly people who spent more than 120 min/day on childcare activities compared to those who devoted no time to childcare.

These findings of the association between routine housework activities (cleaning, cooking and shopping) and health contrast with a recent study conducted in China. The China study found no significant association between cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping and health among older men, but washing clothes and house cleaning were negatively associated with health among women.

Meanwhile, the results corroborate a longitudinal study of 2,761 older Americans aged 65 years. That study found productive housework activities such as cooking, shopping and gardening to be associated with lower risk of mortality.