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The £ 349 housewife

As nanny, cook, cleaner, laundress, shopper, dishwasher, driver, gardener, and seamstress, she has one of the most demanding jobs in Britain today. And paying someone else to do the chores which take the average housewife 71 hours a week would cost £ 349, it was revealed yesterday.

At over £18,000 a year that’s more than the earnings of 70 per sent of the population, including train drivers, firemen, prison offices, and social workers.

Looking after a youngster less than a year old takes a housewife into an even higher pay league. According to a survey, she deserves £457 a week-at nearly £ 24,000 a year, the same as teachers, engineers, and chemists.

Researchers put a price on each chore, and then calculated how long the average person takes doing them. They found housewives spend an average 70.7 hours a week on domestic duties- with looking after the children (17.9 hours) and cooking and cleaning (12.3 hours each0 the most time-consuming.

A wife with a part-time job still works an average of 59 hours a week at home. Those in full-time employment put in longer hours at home than in the workplace.

The good news is that these hours decline sharply as children get older. While the average mother with a child under one puts in 90 hours weekly, the figure drops to 80 hours from one to four and to 66 hours from five to ten.

Mother-of-four Karen Tudor-Williams, from Reading, said last night: “Wages aren’t practical, but the government should recognize the value of housework, perhaps through the tax system. Running a house takes a lot of time and most husbands don’t appreciate this. They say they do the DIY jobs, but my husband only puts a shelf up now and again. He never cleans the toilet- that’s the real test.”

Single parent Anne Neale from North-west London said: “The Government should pay for women wages. It’s the husband’s employer who benefits from the work that women do at home.”

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