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星期一 发表于 2010-8-10 11:36

【双语新闻】欧洲国家丈夫干活儿不比妻子少

He may leave his socks lying around and avoid emptying the dishwasher, but a new study shows husbands do as much work as their wives.

London School of Economics sociologist Catherine Hakim's research shows that when both paid work and unpaid duties such as housework, care and voluntary work are taken into account, men do pull their own weight.

"It's true that women do more work in the home, but overall men and women are doing the same, which is roughly eight hours per day," Hakim told Reuters.

In fact, the study of how people use their time found that men in Britain spend slightly longer on "productive" work each day than women.

"Feminists are wrong to claim that men should do a larger share of the housework and childcare because on average, men and women already do the same number of hours of productive work," Hakim said.

She said the data overturns the long-standing theory that women work a "double shift," juggling a job with household chores, and working longer hours than their husbands.

The study, "(How) can social policy and fiscal policy recognize unpaid family work?," used data from Europe-wide Time Use Surveys.

"Results were similar across Europe, except in the ex-socialist European countries, where there is less of a tradition of men chipping in," Hakim said.

In Scandinavian countries, men were found to work more hours than women.

Hakim hopes to draw attention to the bias of government policy across Europe, which tends only to see paid jobs as real work and said there is evidence that men are beginning to demand the same options and choices as women, with more claims of sex discrimination from men.

"One-sided policies that support employment and careers but ignore the productive work done in the family are, in effect, endorsing market place values over family values," she said.

"Policy-makers need to be aiming for gender-neutral policies."

男人可能会把袜子扔得到处都是,不愿意摆弄洗碗机,然而一项新研究显示,丈夫干的活儿可不比妻子少。

伦敦经济学院的社会学家凯瑟琳•哈金姆的调查显示,如果把有偿工作和做家务、照看小孩和志愿工作这些无偿工作都计算在内的话,男性也尽到了自己的本分。

哈金姆告诉路透社说:“女性确实在家中干的活儿更多,但总体上来看男性和女性的工作量相等,每天差不多八个小时。”

事实上,这项关于人们如何使用时间的研究发现英国男性每天在“生产性的”工作上所花的时间比女性要稍长一些。

哈金姆说:“女权主义者称男性应该承担更多的家务和照料小孩的工作,这种观点是错误的,因为平均而言,男性和女性的生产性工作时间是不相上下的。”

她说这些数据推翻了长期存在的女性“两班倒”工作的理论——即女性在工作的同时,还要照看家务,比她们的丈夫工作时间更长。

这项研究的题目是《无偿家务要如何得到社会和财政政策的承认?》,该研究的数据来自欧洲范围内关于使用时间的调查。

哈金姆说:“全欧洲的调查结果基本相似,除了前社会主义国家,那里没有男性帮助分担家务的传统。”

调查发现,在斯堪的纳维亚半岛上的国家,男性工作的时间比女性还长。

哈金姆希望引起人们对整个欧洲国家政策偏见的关注,现今的政策倾向于认为只有有偿工作才是真正的工作。她还说有证据表明男性开始要求和女性拥有一样的选择权,更多的男性称自己遭到性别歧视。

她说:“这些政策全都一边倒,支持就业和事业发展,忽视家庭中所做的有效工作,这事实上把市场价值凌驾于家庭价值之上了。”

“决策者需要致力于制定性别平等的政策。”

[b]Vocabulary:[/b]

pull one's weight: 尽自己的本分

juggle: to try to deal with two or more important jobs or activities at the same time so that you can fit all of them into your life 尽力同时应付(两个或两个以上的重要工作或活动)

chip in: to make a contribution; help in a small way 做贡献,出一份力

endorse: to say publicly that you support a person, statement or course of action (公开)赞同,支持,认可

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