Perceived Exertion of Homemakers While Performing Selected Household Activities and Their Attitude towards These Tasks

A homemaker spend a substantial portion of her time in doing household activities. On an average Indian homemakers spend approximately 6 to 9 hours on household work. (Vargese et al.., 1989, Masur and Surendra 1990, Kulkarni and Murali, 1991) Most homemakers readily identify some tasks as liked and others as not liked.This aspect may contribute to homemaker’s perceived exertion. Feeling of work easy may contribute to lower perceived exertion and feeling of work hard may explain higher perceived exertion on the part of worker. Present study was undertaken during 2012 in Parbhani city of Marathwada region.

A survey was conducted among randomly selected 100 homemakers from Parbhani city to elicit the information regarding likes and dislikes, perceived exertion and attitude of homemakers towards selected household tasks. The extent of likes and dislikes was assessed by using five points summated rating scale adopted by George and Ogale (1986). Perceived exertion of selected household tasks was assessed by using five points summated rating scale developed by Ningarwal et al. (1995). Correlation coefficient test was applied to find out the relationship of extent of likes and dislikes as well as perceived exertion with selected independent variables. Analysis of variance technique was applied to find out drudgery prone household activities. It was found that washing clothes and mopping floor were more exerting tasks. Liking towards the task was negatively correlated with perceived exertion of household tasks. Age, family size, income and type of family were correlated with perceived exertion and liking of tasks.