The line charts illustrate the proportion of families with electrical appliances and the number of time spending on weekly housework per household in one country spanning from 1920 to 2019.
Overall, the ownership of electrical appliances including the washing machine, refrigerator and vacuum cleaner increased annually. As a consequence, households tended to take less and less time to do the housework during this period.
In 1920, fewer than 40% of families owned the washing machine or refrigerator and even only 2% had a vacuum cleaner. However, after 40 years past, the figures for the ownership of these electrical appliances surged dramatically, reaching 70% for the washing machine and vacuum cleaner, 90% for the refrigerator. Before achieving the highest point, ownership of the washing machine saw a minor decrease by 5%. By 2019, all the mentioned electrical appliances peaked after a few years’ fluctuations.
In contrast, the time spending on housework involving washing clothes, preparing meals and cleaning declined sharply from 1920 to 1960, with a fall by 30 hours. Nevertheless, there were minor variations in the next 60 years, housework time fixed approximately 10 hours.