Domestic duties are women's downfall, apparently

If you've ever wondered why on earth you cleaned the house when it looks like a pigsty mere moments after you laid down the mop, maybe you should turn your back on domestic goddess duties. A new survey from the Institute for Social and Economic Research suggests that far from child-rearing duties, it's the work women do in the home that result in us being paid less and our careers plateauing.

Apparently the nature of the work women do in the home makes them not only tired and grouchy, but makes it difficult to be flexible at work. More women cook the family meals than men, and as family meals come at set times in the day it makes it harder to be more flexible about staying late at work on occasion. If married women or those with live-in partners reduced their average 12 hours of daily domestic duties to the four or five hours a week men put in, they'd see their salaries rise by at least 1 per cent.

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