The provided charts illustrate the ownership rates of three electrical appliances and the corresponding weekly hours dedicated to housework in a single country between 1920 and 2019.
Overall, there is a clear inverse relationship between the rise in appliance ownership and the reduction in domestic labour. While the ownership of all three appliances grew significantly over the century, the time spent on housework experienced a consistent and substantial decline.
In 1920, only 5% of households owned a refrigerator, while washing machines and vacuum cleaners were present in 40% and 30% of homes respectively. By 1980, refrigerator ownership had reached 100%, and vacuum cleaners followed suit by 2000. Washing machines saw the slowest growth, starting at 40% in 1920 and reaching 75% by 2019, despite a brief dip between 1960 and 1980.
Conversely, the time spent on housework plummeted from 50 hours per week in 1920 to just 10 hours by 2019. The most rapid reduction occurred between 1920 and 1960, when hours dropped from 50 to 20. Following this, the decline slowed, plateauing at 15 hours between 1980 and 2000, before reaching the final figure of 10 hours in 2019.