Washington, Apr 5 : This might not come as a surprise to married women who can't figure out why they always have so much housework, for a new research has found that husbands create an extra seven hours a week of housework for women.niversity of Michigan researchers came to the conclusion after analysing a study of a nationally representative sample of U.S. families.

The findings are part of a detailed study of housework trends, based on 2005 time-diary data from the federally funded Panel Study of Income Dynamics, conducted since 1968 at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR).

"It's a well-known pattern," said ISR economist Frank Stafford, who directs the study.

"There's still a significant reallocation of labour that occurs at marriage-men tend to work more outside the home, while women take on more of the household labour.Certainly there are all kinds of individual differences here, but in general, this is what happens after marriage. And the situation gets worse for women when they have children," he added.

In the study, the researchers analysed data from time diaries, considered the most accurate way to assess how people spend their time.

They supplemented the analysis with data from questionnaires asking both men and women to recall how much time they spent on basic housework in an average week, including time spent cooking, cleaning and doing other basic work around the house.xcluded from these "core" housework hours were tasks like gardening, home repairs, or washing the car.he researchers also examined how age and the number of children, as well as marital status and age, influenced time spent doing housework.

Single women in their 20s and 30s did the least housework-about 12 works a week on average, while married women in their 60s and 70s did the most-about 21 hours a week, the study found.

Men showed a somewhat different pattern. Older men did more housework than younger men, but single men did more in all age groups than married men.

Married women with more than three kids did an average of about 28 hours of housework a week. Married men with more than three kids, by comparison, logged only about 10 hours of housework a week.

ANI