• Men’s attitude towards housework is different from women’s and changes throughout life
• Men have a greater interest in housework after 35, women between 20 and 35
• Between 35 and 50 there is greater similarity in interest and time spent on daily cleaning and cooking

London, January 23, 2023. According to the first study carried out by IESE Business School’s International Center for Work and Family and the London-based international think tank, Home Renaissance Foundation, those parents who are more involved in the work of the home are those who also spend more time with their children and show more interest in their daily tasks and relationships. Those with more interest in housework are more involved in their children’s plans (under 14), talk more with them about their friendships and homework, and play more with them. (See infographics).

When the mother’s attitude towards housework is VERY positive, the number of days per week she spends with her children in various activities is 6 days. This is very similar to the amount of time the father spends with his children when the father’s attitude towards housework is also very positive.

Attitudes towards housework are different for men and women and change with age. Interestingly, attitudes evolve in the opposite direction: while men are more interested in housework from the age of 35 onwards, women are less interested in housework from that age onwards.

Two practical examples:

Cleanliness and tidiness: The need for a clean and tidy home increases with age for men, while women become slightly less demanding with age.

Cooking: The biggest difference between men and women is between the ages of 20 and 35. In this age group, women are 60% more likely to agree that daily cooking is a must. Between the ages of 35 and 50, the difference narrows to 6%, and between the ages of 51 and 65, men agree 18% more strongly that daily cooking is essential.

Is it possible to enjoy housework?

Men and women do not differ substantially (less than 10% difference) in their perception of housework as enjoyable. The biggest difference is in the under 35 age group, where women are 15% more inclined to enjoy housework than men. The most similar age group is the 35-50 age group.

The academics who carried out this study recommend:

–  the media and public campaigns encourage better attitudes towards housework, which in turn will encourage involvement in children’s lives and development.

– couples try to share their responsibilities in the home, understanding that domestic tasks require both planning and carrying them out.

– companies and educational programmes encourage the co-responsibility of men and women in the home, so that fathers and mothers are equally and more involved in their children’s lives.

Other conclusions of this study are:

1. Phubbing threatens our mental health and family well-being (See infographics | Read press release).
2. The work of the home is the new ally in achieving better levels of employee wellbeing (See infographics | Read press release).

Psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, greater professional commitment or job crafting are some of the benefits of having a positive attitude towards housework.

• Psychological empowerment predicts job innovation and satisfaction, as well as work-life balance, and the higher it is, the lower the emotional exhaustion
• Job satisfaction and work engagement respond to the desire to stay at work, so higher levels of job satisfaction lead to lower absenteeism, higher levels of job performance and lower intentions to leave the organization
• Job crafting predicts work meaningfulness and safety behaviours (in jobs that involve risks to oneself or others), and organisational commitment. Higher levels reduce risk of workaholism.

London, January 23, 2023. According to the first study carried out by IESE Business School’s International Center for Work and Family and the London-based international think tank, Home Renaissance Foundation, people who have a positive attitude towards housework have higher levels of employee wellbeing.

So what are all these terms and how do they relate to housework? Psychological empowerment, or in other words, a sense of self-control in relation to one’s own work and active engagement in one’s own role, is a skill that increases by 9% if one has a positive attitude towards housework. (See infographics).

Job satisfaction increases by 20% and Work engagement also increases by 26%, which means that the employee feels involved and an active part of his or her company, making it difficult to disengage and feeling that time passes quickly.

Job crafting, on the other hand, improves by 18%. Job crafting refers to proactive behaviour aimed at adapting work to one’s needs and preferences, rather than reactively performing work that the organisation has created.

ICWF/IESE and HRF,

– recommend that public campaigns encourage better attitudes towards housework, which in turn will increase well-being at work.

– encourage couples to share domestic responsibilities, not seeing housework as a duty, but as an opportunity to serve others and develop their own skills.

– suggest further training on planning and fulfilling household tasks as a means to improve individual and family well-being.

– And finally, we recommend that companies facilitate co-responsibility for their employees, as this will improve their well-being at work.

Other conclusions of this study are:

1. Phubbing threatens our mental health and family well-being (See infographics | Read press release).
2. A positive attitude towards housework has a positive influence on parents’ relationship with their children (See infographics | Read press release).

Almost 50% of the men surveyed are at risk of phubbing because they perceive that their employers expect them to be highly available for work at any time. For women it is 33%.

London, January 23, 2023. According to the first study by IESE Business School’s International Center for Work and Family and the London-based international think tank, Home Renaissance Foundation, mental health, self-esteem or well-being could be threatened by phubbing because parents perceive that they must be highly available for work at any time of the day.

What is phubbing? Ignoring others by being on your phone or electronic devices. A practice that not only does not serve as an example for children at home (lack of technological reference) but also causes social isolation and problems in relationships, since the times when phubbing occurs most often are at mealtimes or when they spend time together. Those who are neglected are at risk of feeling unimportant, excluded or rejected.

Phubbing is intensified in cases where the family lives under financial pressure, i.e., when the health of the household economy feels threatened. In such cases, parents’ neglect of their children is 70% higher for men and 50% higher for women. (See infographics).

This financial pressure also affects “technoference”, i.e., the number of times children interrupt their interaction with their parents to pay attention to different screens. The greater the financial pressure, the more children interrupt activities with their parents to turn to digital devices.

The health of family relationships is important for later performance in the workplace, so this study recommends:

– To companies: encourage their employees to disconnect from work to promote good use of technology at home and a healthy enjoyment of free time.

– To families: establish rules at home regarding the use of technology and encourage healthier communication between household members, especially when eating together, travelling or enjoying leisure time.

– And for schools: develop screen-free initiatives to raise awareness of the excessive use of technology and the benefits of interpersonal relationships not mediated by screens.

Other conclusions of this study are:

1. The work of the home is the new ally for achieving better levels of employee wellbeing (See infographics | Read the press release).
2. A positive attitude towards housework has a positive influence on parents’ relationship with their children (See infographics | Read the press release).

Addressing happiness is always a difficult challenge. The experts who took part in our event last Thursday at the Roma Tre University were faced with the complexity of defining the term because it is ambiguous, broad, and often even paradoxical.

Professor Antonio Petagine (Università Roma Tre) said that we all want happiness, we all seek it, and we all long for it, but we do not always obtain it, and on many occasions, this impossibility of finding it is due to the fact that we fall into the error of giving it a hedonistic meaning, seeking our own satisfaction. But this attitude leaves an emptiness that rarely makes us happy.

Given the thousands of suicides and the high consumption of antidepressants, Professor Vinicio Busacchi (Università de Cagliari) suggested turning to philosophical reflection to discover those situations that make our lives unhappy and try to improve them. “Philosophy can help us understand the meaning of life and become a school of life,” said Busacchi, recalling the title of a famous essay by Lou Marinoff entitled “More Plato and less Prozac.”

And then, the concept of relational happiness came up, when Professor Nicola di Stefano (CNR Roma) explained that Aristotle said that, among other things, happiness depends on the number of friends one has and the quality of that friendship. Can our happiness depend on the environment around us? Is the home the first place to find happiness because it is the first place where we relate to others? The home is a test bed, a private place, where we feel protected, it is a nest,” Di Stefano stressed.

Ambassador Roberto Rossi, author of “Aristotele: l’arte di vivere. Fondamenti e pratica dell’etica aristotelica come via alla felicità” (FrancoAngeli, 2018), recalled that happiness is not a moment in life, but a constant state of the soul, a concatenation of actions that help us to find the ultimate goal of life, happiness. Aristotle insisted that happiness is identified with the good life, i.e. the virtuous life. The “recipe” is therefore to try to seek the best possible good in everything we do, unselfishly.

As the editor of the book ‘Happiness and Domestic Life‘, Professor and Philosopher Maria Teresa Russo, explained, the question we have to ask ourselves is: what home for what happiness? Because we can understand the home as a refuge or, conversely, as a place of conflict and happiness as well-being in a material sense. On the other hand, the home is that physical place where we live, think and love: where we guard our own intimacy and define our identity. A complex but unitary system, where happiness is taking care of each other, disinterestedly.

Dear Homemaker,

I hope you have had a happy summer and were able to enjoy time with your family. As our world faces so many challenges, we and our households face a difficult autumn. As always though, we know that it will be the values and care of the home which will help see us through.

We have worked hard this year to bring our latest publication to press. ‘Happiness and Domestic Life‘ was available from the end of August. This book uses a multidisciplinary approach to examine the relationship between the quality of domestic life and the home environment in the context of current changes.  Our books add substantially to academic discourse on the “missing dimension” of the home and are published by the prestigious Routledge publishing house.  Intended for this academic audience the book is also available in an online version. If you are following this aspect of our work and would like a copy, please see here for a discount code: ADC22

Today, Thursday 6 October, is the first online launch of ‘Happiness and Domestic Life’ with the Argentinian association, MIF, Mujeres Independientes y Federales, 9.30h in Argentina, 13.30h in UK, 14.30h in Rome. This Spanish language launch will be led by the distinguished philosopher and editor of the book Professor Maria Teresa Russo, and our head of Communication, Ángela de Miguel. If you would like to join, please register and the link will be sent to you. We are also working on future presentations in Italy, Poland, UK and Spain. If any researchers are reading this and you would like to discuss organising a round table to address these issues in your university, please do get in touch with us.

The main focus of our autumn has been our Expert Meeting: ‘The Home and Displaced People’ on 22 – 23 September. Supported by the Social Trends Institute, we were the guests of the Catholic University of America in Washington DC. This meeting of experts in migration theory, policy and practice marks a new focus so far unexplored by HRF, but one which generated very valuable and promising engagement.

Migration crises and the uprooting of people who are forced to leave their country of origin is a reality that affects millions of people. Experts discussed dignity, respect, solidarity, identity, integration, work, care, mental health, violence, racism, policies, entrepreneurship, investment. It was two days of rich multidisciplinary conversation and continuous learning that our experts will soon put down on paper but in the meantime here is the video.

There is lots of information here and food for thought for the coming months, so I shall just close by wishing you and your homes a good and fruitful season,

Bryan K. Sanderson