It’s an established fact that married women in Japan do too much housework relative to their husbands. One thing that could help cut down the burden is a piece of technology that’s ubiquitous in other countries. Unfortunately, the modern dishwasher still has yet to make a dent in most Japanese homes. Here’s why one Japanese critic says the root cause for that is sexism.
78% of married women in Japan are stuck with the dishes
The burden faced by married Japanese women in their homes is well-documented. A survey run by Tochigi Prefecture last year, for example, found that 28.6% of women surveyed say they do 90% or more of the housework. 9.5% said they did 100%, 20.6% said they did 80%, and 18.7% said they did 70%. All told, nearly 80% of women said they take on 70% or more of the household burden.
That dovetails with surveys I’ve covered here in the past. For example, in 2019, the OECD found that in terms of housework, Japan has one of the worst imbalances among its member nations.
More recently, one real estate company’s survey found women do most of the cooking, washing, and cleaning in their households. That same survey found that 78% of women are responsible for washing dishes in their houses. 50.4% of men claim the same thing. (Which means someone’s lying. I’m betting it’s the men.)
Having a dishwasher around, in other words, could really help. According to Bosch (who obviously isn’t unbiased), dishwashers can save up to 3x of the effort people spend on handwashing. They’re also more energy and water-efficient than handwashing and better at removing bacteria.
Only in 37.3% of Japanese residences
Unfortunately, the energy- and time-saving devices are still few and far between in modern Japanese households.
An essay in President Online by lifestyle researcher Ako Mari says dishwasher usage has picked up quickly since 2016, which is when more women started balancing both work and child-rearing. However, adoption has still been slow in Japan compared to other countries.
In America, for example, nearly 70% of households have a dishwasher. In Japan, however, despite being available since 1960, only 37.3% of households have one as of 2024. That’s only up 1.73x from 2005, when 21.6% of households had the devices.
Ako notes that this slow pace of adoption comes despite efforts to accelerate their use by the Japanese government itself. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (MITI) released a report in 2021 called “Dishwashers: A strong ally in housework.” MITI argued that dishwashers would become more vital as the number of dual-income households continues to approach 70%.
Sexism keeps Japanese kitchens tiny
Even people with a passing knowledge of Japan can probably guess what the big blocker to dishwasher adoption is: space. Japanese kitchens, in particular, are notorious for being tiny, especially compared with their US counterparts.
Ako says the kitchen problem hasn’t gotten any better in the 2020s. In fact, it’s worse. The average kitchen size in new buildings has actually dropped by 1.8 square meters compared to 1980-1990.
Ako cites other issues with adoption of dishwashers, such as people not understanding dishes need to be rinsed beforehand. She also speculates that some “perfectionists” regard dishwashers as lazy, feeling that the “ideal” housewife should wash dishes by hand.
Ultimately, says Ako, space remains the key blocker. Which means this problem lands squarely in the laps of real estate companies.
Ultimately, Ako says the key driver here is sexism.
“There’s still a strong tendency for most people in residential housing to be men,” she writes. “Most of them don’t do housework. That’s led them to view houses as places to relax, not to work. So kitchens have stayed small as living rooms have grown in size.”
In the end, says Ako, it’s up to the real estate industry to make kitchens suitable for reducing the burden of housework – and the Japanese government to set modern standards for new construction to which real estate companies have to adhere.
Note – 3/18/2025: Revised as the stated size of the average kitchen was incorrect.
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