Speaker 1: Already and this this is the Daily Lost, This is
Speaker 1: the Daily ohs oh, now it makes sense. Good morning
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Monday, the tenth
Speaker 1: of March.
Speaker 2: I'm Billy, I'm Sam.
Speaker 1: Today we are looking at the latest results from an
Speaker 1: annual study that looks at how households are changing over
Speaker 1: the years. So last week the latest survey, known as
Speaker 1: the Household Income and Labor Dynamics in Australia also known
Speaker 1: as HILDA, was released and it captures trends across a
Speaker 1: broad cross section of Australian's finances, social life, mental health,
Speaker 1: household activities and family life. Now, among its findings, Sam,
Speaker 1: I thought you'd like this was that men are doing
Speaker 1: the same amount of housework on average as they were
Speaker 1: twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: I'm doing more because I was ten twenty years ago,
Speaker 2: defying the odds.
Speaker 1: So today we are dissecting the findings and discussing what
Speaker 1: has and hasn't changed about Australian households in recent decades.
Speaker 2: This is a story that really generated a lot of
Speaker 2: discussion last week when we were reporting it. I want
Speaker 2: to go through with you what the survey actually found
Speaker 2: and dive a bit deeper into some of those statistics,
Speaker 2: but give me more of a sense of what this
Speaker 2: survey actually is and why it's there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it started in two thousand and one and it's
Speaker 1: been done every single year since then, and it's funded
Speaker 1: by the Australian Government, but it's conducted by the University
Speaker 1: of Melbourne and now it is nationally representative, which is
Speaker 1: kind of one of those jargon words that you hear
Speaker 1: a lot about in surveys, and it just means that
Speaker 1: it is a way for researchers to get an accurate
Speaker 1: sample of the entire population of Australia without actually needing
Speaker 1: to interview every single person in the country.
Speaker 2: Makes sense. Most surveys are like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, I presume that Sam, you weren't asked.
Speaker 2: I was not part of the hilticipate.
Speaker 1: In this survey. But it's still nationally representative because of
Speaker 1: the sample of Australians they have selected for this. Now
Speaker 1: they interview seventeen thousand people and it speaks to all
Speaker 1: different types of households. So households with two parents and
Speaker 1: kids are the most common, then followed by households with
Speaker 1: just one couple and no kids, and then single parents,
Speaker 1: and obviously there are many other different types of households
Speaker 1: that are included in this. One of the really interesting
Speaker 1: things that I find about the study is that it
Speaker 1: actually interviews the exact same people every single year, right.
Speaker 2: Interesting, So it's the same group of seventeen thousand almost
Speaker 2: being tracked through life, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so for nearly twenty five years, the same households
Speaker 1: have been interviewed on mostly the same topics. They do
Speaker 1: kind of introduce new topics every now and again, So
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen they started to ask people about pet ownership, right,
Speaker 1: But there are consistent topics that they do ask every
Speaker 1: single year, and they say that the idea of that
Speaker 1: is that the study can in theory, go on indefinitely.
Speaker 1: It can go on forever because they won't just interview
Speaker 1: their initial sample members, but then also their kids and
Speaker 1: their grandkids. And so it's kind of one of those
Speaker 1: things that we could be talking about this, not you
Speaker 1: and I, Sam, but people could be talking about this
Speaker 1: hundred year yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: But it's also why they can then get some of
Speaker 2: those really interesting findings about social change. Yes, and then
Speaker 2: controlling the same group of people means that we can
Speaker 2: come out with findings that are, you know, what has
Speaker 2: changed in twenty years and say it with a lot
Speaker 2: of confidence.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, So we have this study that has, you know,
Speaker 2: this annual tracking of how these seventeen thousand Australians and
Speaker 2: nationally representative sample are behaving. And I think the biggest
Speaker 2: thing that's come through, at least on tda's social channels
Speaker 2: is the findings on housework. So let's talk about that first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was the focus when it came out last week. So,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned at the top, you found that men
Speaker 1: are doing the same amount of housework on average as
Speaker 1: they were twenty years ago. So this is things like
Speaker 1: cleaning and cooking, and so men are doing roughly thirteen
Speaker 1: hours of housework every week, while women are doing about
Speaker 1: eighteen and a half hours, although that has actually decreased
Speaker 1: since two thousand and two, the number of hours that
Speaker 1: women are spending on housework. So women were doing about
Speaker 1: twenty four hours of housework in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: now they're doing about eighteen and a half hours. But
Speaker 1: that just means that I guess less housework is now
Speaker 1: being done. I was about to say men are not
Speaker 1: doing more.
Speaker 2: Men aren't feeling the void than that just means that,
Speaker 2: you know, the dishes are a bit.
Speaker 1: Dirtier and the sink exactly. And single dads, I think
Speaker 1: this is not surprising. They did the most housework of
Speaker 1: any men, with seventeen point four hours weekly.
Speaker 2: Has anything changed with men over twenty year period?
Speaker 1: Some things have changed, that good question. So one thing
Speaker 1: that has changed for men is how many hours they
Speaker 1: spend caring for their children and disabled or elderly relatives,
Speaker 1: although it's only gone up by a little bit. So
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two there were five hours spent
Speaker 1: on caring duties by men and now there's five and
Speaker 1: a half hours spent on it, so a little increase there.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite stats from the survey is they
Speaker 1: also looked at the satisfaction levels in terms of the
Speaker 1: division of housework in households, and it found that men
Speaker 1: are quite satisfied with the division of unpaid work between
Speaker 1: the women and men in their household, but women less satisfied.
Speaker 1: Are you following? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm following, yep. So some interesting kind of attitude
Speaker 2: angles to this.
Speaker 1: Yes, So men satisfied with the division of labor where
Speaker 1: they are doing less housework than the women. Women less
Speaker 1: satisfied they would like the men to be doing a
Speaker 1: little bit more housework. They also asked the couples whether
Speaker 1: they think that they are individually doing their fair share,
Speaker 1: and it found that men majority of men do believe
Speaker 1: that they are doing the fair share of housework, whereas
Speaker 1: most women believe that they are doing significantly more than
Speaker 1: their fair.
Speaker 2: Share, which is surprising to consider. There's that, I don't
Speaker 2: know what you'd call it an expectations gap or a
Speaker 2: kind of a setting and meeting expectations gap. Because of
Speaker 2: the progress in this conversation and the evolution over the
Speaker 2: last two decades, you would think that that would have
Speaker 2: translated in this sort of survey into a more tangible way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I think is the conversation that obviously,
Speaker 1: over the past two decades we have been talking about
Speaker 1: the division of labor so much, and you know, women
Speaker 1: being more involved in the workplace than they were fifty
Speaker 1: years ago. But clearly, even though women are more involved
Speaker 1: in the workforce and they were two decades ago and
Speaker 1: also fifty years ago, they are still doing the majority
Speaker 1: of the housework. So that is kind of one area
Speaker 1: where I guess society is still lagging in terms of equality.
Speaker 2: I'd be really interested. And I don't know if we
Speaker 2: have this answer on hand, and maybe we can come
Speaker 2: back and tell the listeners what we find later. But
Speaker 2: whether there's an attitude shift with younger men and whether
Speaker 2: we're seeing kind of I don't know men between eighteen
Speaker 2: and thirty exhibit a more hours of contribution to a household,
Speaker 2: but be that expectation question, whether there's a sort of
Speaker 2: generational shift.
Speaker 1: Well, you can be our sample size of one. Are
Speaker 1: you doing more housework, Sam than.
Speaker 2: I was twenty years ago? Absolutely? I know.
Speaker 1: Are you doing more than your wife? No?
Speaker 2: Absolutely not, I was going to say, but probably if
Speaker 2: I was to be asked whether I thought I was
Speaker 2: doing enough, it would be a big, fat no. So
Speaker 2: I think that that I would hope that that salvages
Speaker 2: my reputation slightly, is that it sounds like I'm a
Speaker 2: bit more in touch than the general male population in
Speaker 2: terms of expectations on me, and I know I'm falling
Speaker 2: very well short of that.
Speaker 1: I think Monty, which is Sam's wife's name, I think
Speaker 1: that we cut this up, send it to her and
Speaker 1: she can forever know that we have on camera you
Speaker 1: saying that you're.
Speaker 2: Not doing enough. I do love her very much.
Speaker 1: Okay. My partner is actually the opposite. He does one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of the cooking. So these findings aren't quite
Speaker 1: representative for me.
Speaker 2: And if we did the findings on what it was
Speaker 2: like here in the TDA office, then I think it
Speaker 2: would be recognized that I clean your desk. Your desk
Speaker 2: is single handedly bringing down the cleanliness qualities of this workplace.
Speaker 1: That is also true. But back to the survey, let's
Speaker 1: stick to it.
Speaker 2: What did it find about families.
Speaker 1: So specifically on single parent families, it found that they
Speaker 1: are struggling the most and that they have been hit
Speaker 1: hardest with the rising cost of living, particularly in recent years.
Speaker 1: So single parents have seen a seventy six percent increase
Speaker 1: in childcare costs per child per week, and that's different
Speaker 1: to families with two parents, they've seen about a fifty
Speaker 1: percent increase.
Speaker 2: And we can expect that that's the play a role
Speaker 2: in the election that we've got coming up. On a
Speaker 2: federal level, childcare policies always part of the equation in
Speaker 2: a federal context, but there was also a finding that
Speaker 2: I found really interesting. About one in four single parent
Speaker 2: families live in poverty. Yeah, and I thought that was
Speaker 2: quite a shocking stat for a country where we the
Speaker 2: image of Australia that we like to project and think
Speaker 2: about is not one where you've got twenty five percent
Speaker 2: of single parent families living below the poverty line. Let's
Speaker 2: now turn to one other group before we wrap up today,
Speaker 2: and I want to talk about young people. What are
Speaker 2: the specific trends that you think are important in terms
Speaker 2: of Australia's youth.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the biggest thing that stood out to
Speaker 1: me about young people in this report is the prevalence
Speaker 1: of loneliness. Right, So, Hilda found that loneliness is particularly
Speaker 1: prevalent among young people aged between fifteen and twenty four,
Speaker 1: and that share of lonely individuals between that age group
Speaker 1: specifically was increasing for about a decade before twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: but then it co completely accelerated once a pandemic did hit.
Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty, about one in four young people
Speaker 1: said that they were lonely and that has stayed at
Speaker 1: similar levels in the years since.
Speaker 2: Despite the fact that there's not those physical barriers of
Speaker 2: being able to you know, we can go out of
Speaker 2: it exactly if we want.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So we saw this exponential increase in the number
Speaker 1: of young people feeling lonely during the pandemic and it
Speaker 1: has stayed there despite like you were just saying, those
Speaker 1: restrictions that came in during the pandemic lifting. Interestingly, just
Speaker 1: staying on loneliness, is said that none of the other
Speaker 1: age groups saw a similar increase in loneliness prevalence, So
Speaker 1: it was only in young people that we saw that,
Speaker 1: and actually older adults even saw a decrease in the
Speaker 1: share of lonely people.
Speaker 2: And that's part of a global trend as well. I mean,
Speaker 2: we've covered loneliness studies that have been US based and
Speaker 2: the warning from the US Surgeon General that loneliness is
Speaker 2: the kind of epidemic of our time, particularly for younger populations,
Speaker 2: and Australia is clearly not exempt from that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also, just quickly, in terms of a gender divide,
Speaker 1: it found that females are more likely to become lonely
Speaker 1: than males.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of work to be done
Speaker 2: in this loneliness space, and there are new projects from
Speaker 2: almost every university in Australia around loneliness the psychology of loneliness.
Speaker 2: But I think this highlights that clearly there are things
Speaker 2: that we're still trying to figure out an answer around
Speaker 2: how to prevent it and help people move through it.
Speaker 1: We often talk about the loneliness epidemic, particularly among young people,
Speaker 1: and I can never talk about it without mentioning Eleanor Oliphant,
Speaker 1: which is my favorite book of all time. Are you
Speaker 1: familiar with it, Sam, No, Oh, It's called Eleanor Oliphant
Speaker 1: is completely fine, and it follows the story of a
Speaker 1: woman who experiences severe loneliness. And it's just a beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful book, and it really provides it's fiction, but it
Speaker 1: provides really captivating insights into the mindset of an extremely
Speaker 1: lonely person. It's a beautiful book. You'll cry and love
Speaker 1: all in one sentence. It's just beautiful.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I've got time to read with
Speaker 2: all of my increased housework, due to make sure that
Speaker 2: when we sit here this time next year, I can
Speaker 2: say very firmly that I've lifted my game. Billy, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for taking us through those findings. They're
Speaker 2: fascinating and gives us an interesting snapshot into the state
Speaker 2: of Australia and thank you for joining us on the
Speaker 2: Daily Ods this morning. If you feel like you haven't
Speaker 2: done quite enough housework, I've got the way to make
Speaker 2: you feel better. You can follow, like or subscribe this
Speaker 2: podcast watch the logic there. Not quite sure, I'll have
Speaker 2: to tell you next time, but it does help independent media.
Speaker 2: And you know, if we can make one of us
Speaker 2: in this conversation feel better, then you don't feel that
Speaker 2: good about the housework. We feel good about growing our
Speaker 2: little company. So thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: They We'll be back in the afternoon with your headlines.
Speaker 2: Have a good one. My name is Lily Maddon and
Speaker 2: I'm a proud Aranda Bunjelung calcottin Woman Country.
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