Doing most of the chores at home? This app could help divide cleaning tasks and bring equality

Ever based on astir who does nan astir chores astatine location pinch your partner?

A Swedish app, called Accord, says it tin thief couples and families stock and way their family chores specified arsenic laundry, cleaning aliases market shopping.

“Accord is for couples and families who simply want little accent and much harmony successful their day-to-day lives,” Victor Fredrikson, a co-founder of Accord, told Euronews Next.

The app functions arsenic a checklist for households to share.

A mates aliases family creates a group, adds tasks to shared lists, and marks them disconnected arsenic they are completed.

The app past tracks who has done what and displays nan section of labour connected a advancement page.

This allows families to spot really family activity is distributed complete time, according to nan developers of nan app.

The app is disposable successful aggregate languages including Spanish, French, German, English and Swedish.

The squad down nan app says it’s wished to tackle inequalities successful family chores.

“It's a situation to find family harmony. And 1 of nan biggest factors preventing this from happening is nan inequalities betwixt men and women,” Fredrikson said.

“This causes a batch of vexation and hostility successful relationships. So what Accord does is it brings families person to organise chores and activities together and to activity connected this, minimising nan stresses and arguments that truthful often travel pinch it,” he added.

In Europe, 79 per cent of women do cooking and housework each day, compared to conscionable 34 per cent of men, according to information from nan European Commission.

“And there's a really absorbing sociology study showing that erstwhile families disagreement chores much reasonably and each family member's accent levels trim drastically and connection improves. And this yet leads to happier relationships and amended relationships,” Fredrikson said.

Gender spread reduced by 60 per cent among users

The squad started building nan app successful 2023. In conscionable 10 months since its motorboat successful September 2024, it has gained much than 25,000 users successful Europe.

The app was developed by 3 antheral students astatine KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.

“Two years ago, I was still surviving astatine location pinch my parents and my dada was ever nagging astatine maine to cleanable my room. One day, he asked, ‘Why don't you conscionable programme an app truthful I don't person to nag astatine you anymore?’” Frederikson said.

“I took it possibly a spot much earnestly than he thought I would return it. The adjacent day, successful school, I sounded nan thought to my then-classmate,” he added. 

“We dived deeper into nan halfway problem wrong households. Why is this nagging ever coming up? Where are nan arguments coming from?”. 

Fredrikson and his co-founders quickly realised that nan deficiency of building to organise households, compared to nan workplace, was an underlying rumor causing communal arguments astir chores.

He says nan gender spread successful family chores has shrunk importantly among nan app’s users – from women doing astir doubly arsenic overmuch arsenic men, to a spread that’s been reduced by 60 per cent, which Fredrikson calls a “huge improvement”.

The developers opportunity users study that nan app is an integral portion of their lives and has improved their day-to-day.  

 Lina-Marie Lundqvist useful part-time arsenic a typical pedagogue astatine a preschool and uses Accord.

She said nan app has made a “big difference” for her family pinch her partner, kids and pets.

“Now location are tasks that are distributed clearly, and everyone has taken work for taking this,” Lundqvist says.

“I don't person to beryllium nan task head and beryllium nan initiator each nan time. ‘Can you quiet nan dishwasher?’, ‘Can you do this?’, ‘Can you do that?’. So now nan kids and my partner tin do things without maine having to beryllium nan initiator,” she added.

More than a strict 50-50

The Accord squad said fairness is much astir knowing and connection than strict equality.

“I deliberation 1 point possibly that scares group disconnected from nan app a small spot is reasoning that we want absolute fairness and 50-50 successful position of nan magnitude of tasks aliases nan nonstop clip that you walk connected different things,” Fredrikson said.

“But it's measurement much astir this speech to beryllium had. Seeing, appreciating what nan different personification is really doing and getting that visualisation very clear connected who's doing what, really much, and past yet starting that conversation,” he added.

Fredrikson besides noted that fairness successful nan location isn’t only astir really overmuch clip a task takes, but really it feels to nan personification doing it. When designing nan app’s summary view, his squad began reasoning not conscionable astir clip management, but astir power management.

“I said to a female [ app user] who talked a small spot much astir power management. So, for example, she hated doing nan dishes, but had nary problem cooking, moreover though that took longer than doing nan dishes. So for her, nan fairness successful distribution was little astir splitting chores down nan mediate by minutes and much astir balancing nan tasks that drained her compared to energising her,” Fredrikson said.

“And that's what we've been doing pinch adding connected effort points, wherever you tin measurement nan tasks depending connected really difficult they are and really overmuch you consciousness that they're taking from you,” he added.

In Lundqvist’s household, she says, she still does astir of nan chores since she useful part-time while her partner useful full-time.

“But you look astatine these circles [in nan dashboard] wherever you tin spot successful nan app really galore tasks person been done, and past you tin really spot pinch nan colour standard that we are being helped, that location is simply a ‘team spirit’ successful a different way,” she said.

She besides believes it’s not astir splitting everything precisely down nan middle, but astir emotion seen and supported.

“When I sewage location from activity 1 time and nan laundry was folded and nan dishwasher was unpicked without maine moreover having to remind. It was specified a hallelujah moment,” Lundqvist added.

For much connected this story, watch nan video successful nan media subordinate above.