We were once a can-do nation, priding ourselves on our willingness to get down and dirty, and get the job done.
But today, we seem to be becoming rather less Survivor and rather more Downton Abbey, with nearly all our personal tasks being simply outsourced.
there’s no argument about the lack of time for household chores. Australia currently ranks ninth among the 38 nations of the OECD nations for its share of long-hours workers.Credit:iStock
We have cleaners to keep our homes ship-shape, supermarket and alcohol deliveries to spare us the bother of shopping, Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Menulog to relieve us of cooking chores, Airtasker for the odd jobs that require too much effort and even shirt-ironing companies to prepare us for the post-pandemic office return.
Now the latest service-provider has just arrived in the market: Sheetly, a company that will deliver fresh hotel-quality sheets every week or fortnight so we never have to launder sheets again, or iron, or fold, that troublesome bottom fitted sheet. The service costs about $20 per Queen-sized sheet set.
“We looked at the household chores that take up so much valuable time,” says Sheetly’s chief executive Wendy Rattray, who’s launching the service in Brisbane, with Sydney and Melbourne to follow. “Everyone’s so busy these days, we thought a sheet subscription service would prove a massive convenience.
“It means the time-poor will no longer have to spend so long washing, drying, folding and ironing sheets, and we can deliver towels too to save people that trouble as well. A lot of people in apartments often don’t have the storage space either, or have trouble getting stuff dry when it’s raining or they can’t hang out washing on balconies.”
Too posh to wash
Certainly, there’s no argument about the lack of time for household chores. Australia currently ranks ninth among the 38 nations of the OECD nations for its share of long-hours workers, defined as those working more than 50 hours each week.
According to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, about 30 per cent of employed men and 11 per cent of employed women report a usual working week of 45 hours or more. Professor Mark Wooden, professorial research fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, says: “Despite the prominence given to underemployment, ‘overemployment’ is more pervasive in Australia.”
As a result, an increasing number of us are keen to pay others to do our dirty work, while those classified as “underemployed” or part-time workers, are eager to comply.
That trend started two decades ago, reports social researcher Mark McCrindle, principal of research-based advisory firm McCrindle Research, with Australians paying people to do their yard work. It grew hugely six to seven years ago with the introduction of technology platforms like Uber enabling people to efficiently swap time for money.
“We are still an egalitarian society. It’s not about two classes. An Uber driver might have his lawn done by someone from Jim’s Mowing or an Airtasker worker will still order Deliveroo. It’s just we’re all specialising.”
Ducking drudgery
“It further accelerated over the past two years with COVID forcing people to spend more time in their homes and seeing odd jobs that needed to be done,” McCrindle says. “The pandemic also led to a lot of people reprioritising their lives and giving them the spare cash flow to make the most of them.
“Our forebears might have seen it as laziness, but it’s more specialising according to our strengths and enjoying different aspects of life. For instance, someone may love being a parent, but would prefer spending more time with their children so they subscribe to a nappy service or outsource the organisation of a birthday party.”
Of course, it does create paid work for others, but some worry about the lack of regulations on pay and conditions for this “peripheral” workforce. RMIT associate professor Shelley Marshall says these workers are often not receiving super contributions, paid holiday leave or the other entitlements the “core” workforce enjoys.
“There is a huge growth in the number of people servicing those who don’t have time for domestic tasks and who are trying to work out ways of coping with growing workloads,” Marshall says. “But the problem is the quality of those jobs created, and pay.”
Sheetly is a social venture, employing asylum-seekers, refugees and people living with disabilities who might have trouble earning a living elsewhere, while McCrindle argues that this massive outsourcing movement is still not turning Australians into new-style aristocrats.
“We are still an egalitarian society,” he says. “It’s not about two classes. An Uber driver might have his lawn done by someone from Jim’s Mowing or an Airtasker worker will still order Deliveroo. It’s just we’re all specialising.”
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