Photo/Illutration A scene from “A Week in My Life” directed by Mipo O ((c) WOWOW)

There are an enormous variety of household chores to be done, ranging from putting away left out shoes and breaking down delivery boxes to removing hairs tangled in the vacuum cleaner and changing the drain net.

Every step taken in the house shows a chore that needs to be done. But are all these low-profile but inevitable routine tasks at home visible to everyone?

According to a national survey on family trends in Japan conducted last year by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, wives do 80.6 percent of the household chores.

The survey asked women under 60 with spouses questions about housework. This family survey is conducted approximately every five years.

The past surveys found wives bearing a far larger burden of the housework, with their shares being 83.2 percent in 2018 and 85.1 percent in 2013. Although the share of wives in housework has been gradually decreasing, the pace of change has been far too slow.

The survey was initiated three decades ago to grasp the relationship between the burden of housework and child care on wives and childbirth after the total fertility rate--the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime--in Japan hit a post-war low, sparking what was called the “1.57 shock.”

Some 30 years later, the birthrate is now 1.26. Traditional conceptions about gender division of labor die hard.

On social media, there are plenty of posts tagged “#InvisibleHousework” and “#NamelessHousework.”

While detailed tasks and preparations are crucial for supporting daily life, they often go unnoticed by other members of the family. Many wives express such feelings of frustration in their posted messages.

The category of “invisible housework” was first added to the list of question items in the previous family trend survey.

Husbands generally do not make much contribution to doing such chores as “managing the stock of food and daily necessities,” “planning meals” and “sorting and gathering trash,” according to the survey findings, which also highlighted significant differences in perceptions about housework between spouses.

Even if people believe they are doing their part, it may not be enough from another person's viewpoint.

One might say, for instance, “I take out the trash for collection,” but preparation and follow-up work such as the sorting of trash and changing of trash bags might be done by the other. Making housework “visible” in such cases could be a good start for debating related issues.

The movie “Tell It Like a Woman,” which is currently showing in Japan, is an anthology of seven short stories from various countries themed around the gender gap.

One of the seven short films, “A Week in My Life,” spends most of its runtime depicting in detail the housework of an overworked single mother of two, played by Anne Watanabe.

Director Mipo O, who is raising two children, says, “When a wife is exhausted at night after a day of hard work, her husband asks, ‘What was so hard?’ I wanted to visualize the workload (of a mother) for such couples.”

To narrow the disparity in household responsibilities between men and women, it is crucial for the government and businesses to take such supportive initiatives as reducing long working hours and expanding paternity leave.

However, taking stock of invisible housework in each family is a first step for the couple to see the same picture of the situation and have a productive conversation on the matter.

Married couples could tackle this challenge more effectively if they start discussing realistic sharing of the burden of housework and the balance between work and private life each wants to realize while trying to devise their own labor-saving strategies.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 22

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