The Role of Housework in Married Women’s Physical Activity: 1936 to 2017

Cathleen D Zick

doi:10.12691/jpar-4-2-3

Abstract

The historical decline in adultsâ physical activity (PA) has been attributed to the growth in both sedentary occupations and car-dependent transportation. Missing from the conversation has been any examination of what role shifts in housework time/composition may have played. Historical time-use data for married women in the United States from 1936 to 2017 are used to assess trends in womenâs moderate physical activity (PA) housework as measured by the typical metabolic equivalents (METs) for various core housework tasks. Analyses reveal that for much of the 20th century, the typical married woman likely met the Centers for Disease Control's PA recommendations through daily housework. However, time spent in moderate PA housework has declined at a faster pace than total housework time for the past 30 years. The downward trend appears to be driven primarily by changes other than household socio-demographics. Shifts in housework, both in terms of the composition and the overall time spent doing housework, have likely played an important role in the historical decline of adult womenâs physical activity and rising obesity risk.

Highlights

American adults are less physically active today than they were 40 years ago [1,2,3] and this decline in physical activity (PA) is associated with increased risk of mortality and morbidity [4,5,6]
The married women living on farms in Upstate New York, on average, were spending a little more than two hours per day in moderate PA housework, a figure that is four times the current CDC recommendation of 150 minutes of PA per week [23]
While we cannot generalize from these early studies, collectively they paint a picture of moderate PA housework that involved sizeable absolute amounts and considerable relative shares of all housework activities

Summary

Introduction

American adults are less physically active today than they were 40 years ago [1,2,3] and this decline in physical activity (PA) is associated with increased risk of mortality and morbidity [4,5,6]. As growing numbers of Americans moved from cities to the suburbs, they became more car-dependent for their transportation needs [1]. Taken together, these downward PA pressures have swamped the modest gains Americans have made in leisure-related PA over the past 40+ years [3,7]. By 2015, the typical amount of time devoted to housework by all women had declined to 15.75 hours per week [9]. The composition of married women’s housework changed as there were substantial declines in time spent in meal preparation and cleanup, textile construction and care, and home care while there were increases in time spent in shopping and managerial tasks [10,11]

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