Divorce rates are far higher among “modern” couples who share the housework than in those where the woman does the lion’s share of the chores, a Norwegian study has found.

In what appears to be a slap in the face for gender equality, the report found the divorce rate among couples who shared housework equally was around 50 per cent higher than among those where the woman did most of the work.

“What we’ve seen is that sharing equal responsibility for work in the home doesn’t necessarily contribute to contentment,” said Thomas Hansen, co-author of the study entitled “Equality in the Home”.

The lack of correlation between equality at home and quality of life was surprising, the researcher said.

“One would think that break-ups would occur more often in families with less equality at home, but our statistics show the opposite,” he said.

The figures clearly show that “the more a man does in the home, the higher the divorce rate,” he went on.

The reasons, Mr Hansen said, lay only partially with the chores themselves.

The deeper reasons for the higher divorce rate, he suggested, came from the values of “modern” couples rather than the chores they shared.

“In these modern couples, women also have a high level of education and a well-paid job, which makes them less dependent on their spouse financially.” Mr Hansen said.

They can manage much easier if they divorce,” he said.

Norway has a long tradition of gender equality and childrearing is shared equally between mothers and fathers in 70 per cent of cases.

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(Agencies)