Women still do most of the dishes: census

Canadian men have been more inclined to pick up a mop or cook dinner during the past 10 years. But when it comes to housework as an extreme sport, women are more than twice as likely to clock long hours than men are, according to new census data.

On the surface, all Canadians seem keen to keep a tidy home. In 2006, men and women report doing "some" unpaid housework at similar rates: 87.9 per cent of men and 92.6 per cent of women.

But while 19.8 per cent of women say they're spending 30 or more hours on housework, only 7.7 per cent of men report doing the same.

"Women and men are closer now than they used to be, however this is just participation, not hours," said Danielle Zietsma, a senior economist at Statistics Canada.

Men and women currently work about the same number of total hours, with women doing more unpaid work and men doing more paid work, said University of Guelph sociologist Kerry Daly. But eventually we'll see a "a pattern of convergence emerging over time," in which men and women are sharing housework equally, he says.

Still, women can also have a deeply imbedded ambivalence about letting go, said Dr. Daly, who specializes in the study of fatherhood. "The reality is when it comes to judgments about how you're taking care of your kids or how clean your house is, women are more likely to be held accountable if things aren't up to a certain standard."

By the same token, he said, men may feel like they can't live up to those standards. "Part of the ambivalence of men is, 'If I do take this on I'm subject to criticism of not doing good enough.' "