The amount of time South Korean women spend on household chores is three times the length of time spent by man, a local report showed Sunday, displaying deeply rooted gender roles in a society where a growing number of women have entered the workforce. 

According to the study by the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family, working mothers spend around 3 1/2 hours a day on household chores. Their spouses, on the other hand, spend slightly less than an hour on housework. 

Based on an analysis of the amount of time spent by married men and women on housework in 2014, the report showed a persistent gender gap over the sharing of housework and overall gender inequality in patriarchal Korean society, said the SFWF.
“Married women have endured inequality when it comes to using their time for housework,” said the report. “Among them, those who have kids and work jobs are in a difficult position because they have to engage in paid and unpaid work at the same time.”

Korea is one of the countries that ranks lowest in gender equality. According to a 2016 report by the World Economic Forum, Korea’s gender equality ranked 116th out of 144 countries surveyed. Women were found to have less opportunities in education, health services and political participation.  

They spend about 2 hours and 20 minutes preparing meals and cleaning houses, seven times more than the amount of time spent by men, the SWFW report said. Women also spend more time taking care of children and pets, maintaining cars and buying groceries. 

Meanwhile, the report noted that men spend slightly less than seven hours at work compared to about 5 1/2 hours for women. Women, however, get 10 minutes less sleep per night than their husbands and spend less time eating meals. 

After work and on weekends, men have more than four hours of leisure time per day, 49 minutes more than women. Both genders devoted most of their free time to watching TV, playing computer games or surfing the internet. 

The report also showed that the higher the couple’s combined income, the less time they spend on household chores. A couple with 1 million won ($851) of monthly income spend about 6 hours and 40 minutes per day doing housework, while those who earn more than 7 million won spent about five hours. 

By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)