More cooking, less working on the car for men in Sweden

The regular Swedish Level-of-Living Survey (LNU) makes it possible to track how the division of housework between men and women has changed over time. In a chapter of the new book Välfärd och livsvillkor: Perspektiv på samtida samhällsbilder (Welfare and living conditions: Perspectives on contemporary society) (Liber), Nicklas Neuman has, together with Katarina Boye (Stockholm University), director of LNU and one of the book’s editors, compiled these statistics to find out how much time is spent on cooking, cleaning, laundry and household maintenance.

“What we find is that there has been a general shift over time, with women doing substantially less housework. At the same time, we can see that men are doing a little more. And when it comes to men, it’s above all the time spent preparing food that has increased, and this is also the most gender-equal category of housework. So, more time on food and less time on maintenance, such as tinkering with the car,” says Nicklas Neuman, Associate Professor at the Department of Food Studies, Nutrition and Dietetics.

Women’s share of housework fell by just over 2.5 hours a week between 2000 and 2020–22, when the LNU was last carried out. Over the same period, men increased the amount of housework they do by around one hour. At the same time, gender differences remain. Women spend just under 14 hours a week on housework. This can compared with approximately 11 hours for men.

Cooking isn’t just for the weekend

Swedes are most equal when it comes to cooking and all the work that goes with it, such as shopping, planning and washing up. The LNU figures for 2020–22 show that men accounted for 44 per cent of this work.
“There’s a perception that men mostly cook at the weekend because they enjoy it. However, it’s difficult to find support for this in figures from either the Level-of-Living Survey or Statistics Sweden. It’s more likely that social norms have changed. There has been a major shift in attitudes regarding what men are expected to do at home. Being an involved father has long been the accepted norm for Swedish men, but the expectation that a man should be able to whip up a meal is a strong norm too,” says Neuman.

Strong support for an equal division of labour

In the chapter, the researchers also examine whether attitudes towards gender equality have any bearing on the amount of time men and women spend on housework.

“Overall, support for a society with an equal division of responsibilities in the home is very high in Sweden and we find no evidence to suggest that it has fallen to any notable degree amongst young adult men. We can see that men who are very supportive of gender equality do slightly more housework, whilst women who are very supportive do slightly less. If you are less supportive of gender equality, the picture looks a little more gender-stereotypical. But the difference we see is quite small.”

Are Swedish people more equal today than ever before?

“In the chapter Katarina and I wrote, we have only looked at housework. There are other chapters in the book, such as one that deals with economic vulnerability, and women are more vulnerable in that respect. But when it comes to housework, it seems we’re more equal than ever – and, as I said, this is particularly true when it comes to cooking.”

Sandra Gunnarsson