Cleaner sex: Men in many countries around the world are engaging in more chores, which may be leading to an increase in intimacy amongst couples.

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WASHINGTON: Men seeking more frequent intimate conjunctions with their partners could do well to take the bins out. And maybe wash a few dishes.

This is the observation made in a new paper released on Thursday by Council of Contemporary Families (CCF), which reports that American men have doubled the amount of housework they do and may be having better sex because of it.

"By and large, the more men do around the house, the happier women are," said sociologist Scott Coltrane of the University of California, Riverside, a co-author of the report published.

Cleaning the pool

"When men do more of the housework, women's perceptions of fairness and marital satisfaction rise and the couple experience less marital conflict," the report says.

The reward for menfolk who help out around the house could be more sex. "We sociologists generally don't go there, but therapists say there's a direct correlation" between men doing more housework and the frequency of sex, said Coltrane.

In a comment posted on the CCF website, psychologist Joshua Coleman agreed that sharing household chores "is associated with higher levels of marital satisfaction - and sometimes more sex, too!"

"Wives report greater feelings of sexual interest and affection for husbands who participate in housework," Coleman, who is a senior fellow at the CCF, said.

Housework habits

In addition to doing more boring chores around the home, American men spend three times more time with their kids today than they did in 1960, the study said. The time women spend with their children has doubled, it said, speculating that both mothers and fathers have set higher parenting standards for themselves.

But all that time spent parenting could have a negative effect on a couple's intimate relationship. "The increase in parenting hours on the part of both husbands and wives may pose some threats to the couple relationship since many couples have increased their time with their children by eliminating or greatly reducing time for romance," Coleman wrote.

Happily, though, the phenomenon of men chipping in around the home appears to be global, Coltrane said, citing work by co-author Oriel Sullivan, a woman, who is a professor of sociology at Ben Gurion University in Israel.

"Men everywhere are doing more," said Coltrane. "Even Italian men and Spanish men are doing more...not huge amounts but more than they used to," he said.

Sexual equality

Even if men still lag far behind women in terms of what they do around the house, they are moving in the right direction and the gains are unlikely to be reversed, the report summarised.

"Men are still only doing half as much as women do, but we see the bar inching up and we think the process is irreversible," said Coltrane.

The hard-earned gains have been made in spite of the poor social support system for working families in the United States, the report said.

"The U.S. guarantees no paid leave for mothers in any segment of the work force, leaving it in the company of only Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland," the report said, referencing a study published last month.

The full report on men and women sharing household tasks is to be presented at the CCF's annual conference next month in Chicago.