I was thinking it's a function of the social setting. Single bloke 1h/week. Couple 5h/week. With kids continuous. Or some such.

I imagine standards have also shifted. It just wouldn’t have been possible to wash a child’s clothes after one wear before the invention of the washing machine. People also had far less clothing that they could have even needed to wash.

Life pro tip: teach your children to do chores.

> Life pro tip: teach your children to do chores.

Before teaching your children to do chores: x hours per week for chores

After teaching your children to do chores: y hours per weeks to have annoying discussions with the child, and X hours per week cautioning the children to do the chores, and ensuring that your children do the chore properly. Here X > x.

Additional time for you: -((X-x)+y), where X>x and additionally y > 0.

I did a lot of chores growing up. Looking back, X>x was true for the first few months of each new chore; but X died down to zero as time went on.