If you’re tired of nagging your other half to pull his weight around the house, help could finally be at hand.
Researchers have discovered that a single two-hour training session can persuade men to spend significantly more time caring for their children.
As part of the study a group of men were coached on how to play a bigger role at home.
This included key messaging that explained fathers often overestimate how much they contribute to childcare and housework.
Analysis revealed that after this intervention, men spent an extra hour per day on childcare at the weekends. This, in turn, gave their wives more time for other things.
The findings suggest that, rather than being hopeless around the house, some men may simply need a little workplace coaching to change their habits.
‘Training increased fathers’ weekend childcare time… especially among those with young children,’ Professor Shintaro Yamaguchi, from the University of Tokyo, said.
‘Much of the fathers’ new involvement happened when parents were with the children together, so what actually freed up mothers’ time was a reduction of roughly 2.6 hours in their housework.’
In a follow-up survey, respondents who had participated in the training were asked whether they had taken any action within three days after the training. This figure shows the fraction of respondents who took each action
For the study the researchers recruited more than 1,200 male employees from four Japanese organisations.
The men were assigned to one of two interventions: either a two-hour work-life balance training session led by working fathers, or an information campaign correcting misconceptions about colleagues’ attitudes towards paternity leave.
The researchers surveyed participants before the interventions and again over the following months, tracking changes in attitudes, childcare, housework and working hours.
The training proved far more effective than simply providing information, producing measurable changes in behaviour.
Fathers who completed the training spent around one extra hour a day caring for their children at weekends, with the biggest gains seen among those with children aged five or under.
This allowed the wives of trained fathers to increase their paid working hours by an average of 3.6 hours a week.
They also spent around 2.6 fewer hours on housework the study, published by the Center for Research and Education in Program Evaluation, revealed.
‘The training triggered a renegotiation of the overall division of labour at home, not just a transfer of childcare,’ Professor Yamaguchi said.
A previous study has shown that on the whole, women overwhelmingly are responsible for cleaning, parenting and cooking meals
A previous study revealed the most effective aphrodisiac for women may be the sight of her partner taking the bins out.
Researchers have found a strong link between the division of household chores and a woman’s libido.
They discovered that women experience higher sex drives when housework is divided evenly.
But when they shoulder most of the load – including washing the dishes, making beds, taking out the rubbish and doing laundry – they reported lower levels of passion.
