Fathers doing twice as much in the home

Published on Saturday 13 June 2009 20:03

THE value of work fathers do around the house has nearly doubled during the past four years as men take on more domestic chores, research has shown.

It would cost an estimated 23,296 to pay someone to do all the jobs fathers do for nothing, up from 12,738 in 2005, according to insurer Legal and General.

Fathers now spend an average of 53 hours a week carrying out household chores and childcare, up from just 34 hours a week in 2005.

Within this total, they spend around 21.5 hours looking after children, 9.5 hours doing housekeeping tasks, 7.5 hours cleaning and six hours cooking.

Fathers have seven hours a week of free time and spend around three hours a week with their partner.

Fathers appear not to mind the increasing level of domestic tasks they are taking on, with 46 per cent claiming they would prefer not to work and stay at home and look after the children.

Alan Ferguson, protection marketing and channel development director at L&G, said: "Mums often get the headlines when it comes to domestic work, but actually dads contribute a huge amount, too.

"These days, the jobs involved in running a house are far more evenly distributed."

But despite the high value of jobs carried out by fathers only 63 per cent have life insurance, while just a third have critical illness cover and 27 per cent have income protection.

Instead, 35 per cent of families said they would rely on grandparents to step in and help out with the work done by fathers if they died or were too ill to do it, while 30 per cent said they would work part time, despite the fact this would have a significant impact on the amount of money they had coming in.

One thousand parents were questioned for the survey during January.