Spanish govt creates app to highlight gender imbalance in household chores
Spain's Ministry of Equality is set to launch an app that tracks time spent doing housework and highlights gender imbalances around the home.
The Spanish government has created an app to record the amount of time spent doing household chores in a bid to highlight the fact that females still do most of the housework.
The app is the brainchild of Spain's Equality Ministry and is geared to promote the 'co-responsible distribution' of household chores and tasks by logging time spent doing them. Designed to be "simple" to use and "very similar" to cost sharing apps, the app will be easily adaptable to all types of families, as well as for housemates sharing apartments.
'Feminist approach'
The app will not only log hours spent doing household tasks but also, according to the Ministry, do so with a 'feminist approach' by highlighting more invisible tasks such as meal planning or giving emotional attention to children.
A recent report by the the Caixa Foundation estimated that women spend on average 15 more hours a week than men on household chores, which works out to 780 more per year.
Ángela Rodríguez, who works in the Equality Ministry, spoke to journalists in Geneva this week when presenting a report to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and indicated that the app has already passed the tendering stage and been awarded to software development company Wairbut, S.A. for production.
The Ministry expects it to be ready for use by September.
“We women spend more time on domestic tasks than men," she told the committee, also adding some detail on the feminist angle of the application, suggesting it won't only track tasks such as cleaning the kitchen, "which can be 20 minutes", but also the time spent preparing for this, such as buying cleaning products or even drawing up shopping lists in order to be able to do.
The Spanish press reports that the app will cost the government €211,750 to make.
Changing attitudes
A 2017 study found that 44 percent of Europeans believe that the main role of women is to take care of the home and family, while 43 percent claimed the role of men is to make money, according Eurobarometer figures.
However, it also found that Europeans were on the whole becoming more progressive in terms of traditional gender roles, with 8 out of 10 saying that men should take on the same amount of domestic responsibilities or take paternity leave to help with childcare.
It seems that in Spain these changing attitudes are not only confined to Spain's Equality Ministry, but are also now reflected at a legislative level.
READ ALSO: Court in Spain orders man to pay ex-wife €200K for 25 years of housework
In March a Spanish court ordered a man to pay his ex-wife €200,000 for 25 years of unpaid domestic labour based on the minimum wage rate throughout their marriage.
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The Spanish government has created an app to record the amount of time spent doing household chores in a bid to highlight the fact that females still do most of the housework.
The app is the brainchild of Spain's Equality Ministry and is geared to promote the 'co-responsible distribution' of household chores and tasks by logging time spent doing them. Designed to be "simple" to use and "very similar" to cost sharing apps, the app will be easily adaptable to all types of families, as well as for housemates sharing apartments.
'Feminist approach'
The app will not only log hours spent doing household tasks but also, according to the Ministry, do so with a 'feminist approach' by highlighting more invisible tasks such as meal planning or giving emotional attention to children.
A recent report by the the Caixa Foundation estimated that women spend on average 15 more hours a week than men on household chores, which works out to 780 more per year.
Ángela Rodríguez, who works in the Equality Ministry, spoke to journalists in Geneva this week when presenting a report to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and indicated that the app has already passed the tendering stage and been awarded to software development company Wairbut, S.A. for production.
The Ministry expects it to be ready for use by September.
“We women spend more time on domestic tasks than men," she told the committee, also adding some detail on the feminist angle of the application, suggesting it won't only track tasks such as cleaning the kitchen, "which can be 20 minutes", but also the time spent preparing for this, such as buying cleaning products or even drawing up shopping lists in order to be able to do.
The Spanish press reports that the app will cost the government €211,750 to make.
Changing attitudes
A 2017 study found that 44 percent of Europeans believe that the main role of women is to take care of the home and family, while 43 percent claimed the role of men is to make money, according Eurobarometer figures.
However, it also found that Europeans were on the whole becoming more progressive in terms of traditional gender roles, with 8 out of 10 saying that men should take on the same amount of domestic responsibilities or take paternity leave to help with childcare.
It seems that in Spain these changing attitudes are not only confined to Spain's Equality Ministry, but are also now reflected at a legislative level.
READ ALSO: Court in Spain orders man to pay ex-wife €200K for 25 years of housework
In March a Spanish court ordered a man to pay his ex-wife €200,000 for 25 years of unpaid domestic labour based on the minimum wage rate throughout their marriage.
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