Spanish Ministry of Equality to launch app that counts hours men and women spend on household chores

A mobile app will be launched by Spain’s Ministry of Equality that counts the hours spent by men and women on household chores.

This new initiative was presented by Ángela Rodríguez, the Secretary of State for Equality during a trip to Geneva. The politician was in Switzerland heading the Spanish delegation before the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which examined the IX periodic report on the situation in Spain in this regard.

The objective of the application was promoted as enabling its users to identify the extra burdens that women bear and to make men aware of co-responsibility in housework.

It is hoped that the use of this app – to be launched in the coming months – will reduce the huge gap that currently exists in the distribution within couples, where women reportedly spend more than twice as many hours as men doing household chores.

In statements to the media, Ángela Rodríguez explained that the app will work in a similar way to other programs like Splitwise, which already exist to make shared expense accounts between different people.

The approach is that each person in the household marks on the mobile what they have done and how much time they have spent. Its time counter will subsequently allow the application to collect and display the information.

Ms Rodríguez detailed that the calculation of time for each task is very relevant because it is not comparable to compensate one task with another, as reported by elmundo.es.

She offered the example of cleaning the kitchen. Before the use of the app, in order for this work to be carried out, it was necessary to do the shopping or prepare the food, which are two things that hours, not minutes.

This task is one that generally falls on women but which is not recognized despite the effort involved highlighted the minister. She also pointed out the mental burden involved in organising what is needed at home.

The use of this application will be a “very interesting” exercise to find out how the tasks in the home are distributed between men and women she suggested.

Its use could also be extended to children or colleagues with whom they share a home, allowing them to achieve equilibrium the minister added.

Without venturing a specific date, the Secretary of State indicated that the application “has been out to tender for some time” and that the Ministry of Equality expects it to be available this summer.

According to the results of a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), women in Spain dedicate more than twice as many hours as men to chores around the home. Five to two was the ratio explained Rodríguez.

Initially, the Co-responsible Plan was responsible for the idea of creating the app she said. This is a program of initiatives that seeks to achieve effective equality in the distribution of care, as well as favour family and work reconciliation.

The Ministry has already carried out several campaigns related to household chores. The last one called ‘Charo’ aired at Christmas.

It was accompanied by a video in which the need to celebrate co-responsible parties was encouraged in a humorous way. A message was built into the humour though that warned of the burden placed on women when it came to Christmas preparations.