CLEANING FOR HARMONY
1999 SDA National Cleaning Survey

KEY FINDINGS

A new survey conducted by The Soap and Detergent Association (SDA) and Opinion Research Corporation found some messy truths behind the doors of America’s married and living as married couples.

Specifically, the survey revealed that:

Almost half (46%) of all couples who make a home together argue about cleaning. - The arguments run the gamut from who should do the cleaning (27%), to how often the cleaning should be done (24%) to the best way to clean (17%).

Women claim they do 79% of the cleaning in their household. - Men admit they only do 35%.

Couples with children fight more about cleaning. - 55% of couples with children in the household argue over cleaning as compared to 38% of households that have no children.

Cleaning Pet Peeves

Of the nearly two-thirds who see their partners’ cleaning skills as less than perfect:

• 51% say their partner’s biggest cleaning weakness is that they don’t clean often enough.

• 41% complain that their spouse or significant other vacuums and dusts around items instead of moving them.

• 39% of respondents are annoyed by their mate’s failure to clean up after using the kitchen. Almost half of the women have this complaint as compared to 24% of men.

• 38% mentioned bathroom cleanup or the lack there of as a source of contention. Again, half of the women mentioned this as opposed to only 16% of men.

Cleanliness Rating

• Using a 1 to 5 scale where 5 is “extremely well” and 1 is “extremely poor,” 55% of men give their mate the highest rating available, a 5 out of 5.

• Women score the men in their lives a 3.

• The average score men give to themselves is 3.7, while women rate themselves a 4.1.

Gender-izing Cleaning Tasks?

• Four times as many women as men say they do the laundry better than their partner.

• Women also believe that the bathroom and the kitchen are better cleaned when they do it as opposed to their mate.

• 22% of males say the one job they do better is vacuuming, and 14% of men as opposed to 9% of women believe they do a better job washing dishes.

• 25% of the men said that they could not top their mate in any cleaning task.

With Age Comes Wisdom

• Those in the over 55 age group are most likely to give equal weight to his or her own skills and to his or her mate’s skills.

• Those 55 years and older are less likely to have arguments about cleaning than those 18 to 24 (59% vs. 34%).

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The 1999 SDA National Cleaning Survey, which included interviews with a national sample of 573 adult Americans, married or living as married, 18 years and older, was conducted by Opinion Research Corporation International.

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