Recent research shows that getting married prompts* a 50 percent increase in housework.

When a woman is single, ironing*, cleaning, cooking and other duties take up about 10 hours a week. But after they are married, or have simply moved in with a boyfriend, they typically do 15 hours of housework every week, according to a report in the latest edition of Economic Journal in the U.K.

For men, the effect is opposite. Before getting married, they do an average of seven hours’ housework a week. Afterwards, that drops to five hours. The research says that men are willing to take a back seat because they think women enjoy taking control of the house and all the duties.

But women say they are forced to spend much more time at the kitchen sink* because they are frustrated* by the piles of dirty dishes left by their partners.

The research, by the economist Helene Couprie, is based on a sample of more than 12,000 men and women in the British Household Panel Survey. A spokesman for the Economic Journal said it shows women tend to have more of a “taste” for housework because they do more than men, even when single.

Scientists discovered recently that men could live longer if they did more housework.