an investigation of domestic laundry in europe - habits ... - SIFO

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22An investigation into the domestic laundry habits in Europecountries except Greece, but here the percentage owning their own tumbledryer is very small.When we turn to the hours spent on laundry, we discover that the Spanish respondentsuse more time than the respondents in the other countries. Why thisis so is unclear. The Spanish respondents have the same share of householdswith their own washing machine, so this is not the reason. They have asmaller share of households with tumble dryers compared to the Netherlandsand Norway, but not compared to Greece, so this is not the reason either. Anotherexplanation could be that the Spanish respondents interpret the questiondifferently and refer to the entire process when clothes are being washed, i.e.including the time when the washing machine is on. In the manual for the survey,working time was defined as “The time it takes until the clothes arehanging on the clothesline to dry or are put into a tumble dryer. That is, notironing or putting clothes away”.Table 2-2 Average time spent on laundry in the different countries. Hours.Greece Netherlands Norway Spain(N=1000) (N=1001) (N=1000) (N=958)Average time 2.87 4.51 3.68 9.18However, it is possible that the Spanish respondents do spend more time doinglaundry. This could be because they wash their clothes and textiles morefrequently, or they put fewer textiles in the washing machine. It is also possiblethat the Spanish respondents include the cycle of the washing machine inthe answer, while the other respondents do not. With this in mind, we shallsoon approach the subject of how the laundry is done, but first we shall investigatewhether there are different attitudes towards laundry in the participatingcountries. These attitudes might also explain different patterns of doing domesticlaundry.2.3 Attitudes towards domestic laundryThey ways people do their laundry could be explained by different factors.Some of them are measurable facts, such as how much laundry you have,whether you get dirty doing your work or sports, what machines and otherequipment you have at home etc. Others are less tangible; in each societythere are norms and expectations as to what standards are acceptable and howdifferent tasks should be done.
Assessment of the consumer laundry habits - a quantitative survey 23Ten statements regarding laundry habits were listed in the questionnaire, andthe respondents were asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed withthese. We adopted a scale ranging from 1 to 5, where 1 signified “fully disagree”and 5 signified “fully agree”. The statements dealt with several topics:1) Attitudes on how textiles are presented in a social context2) Attitudes on the cleanness of textiles3) Attitudes towards the laundry process and its impact.These statements also address other aspects and could of course be interpretedin other ways, but for the present purpose we shall stick to these three themes.2.3.1 Attitudes regarding textiles in a social contextMost clothes are public in the sense that when you are wearing them, anyonecan see and smell them. We had three statements related to the public aspectsof clothing:- Clothes should always smell as if newly washed- It is embarrassing to wear clothes with a body odour- Boiling is unnecessary as modern detergents keep clothes white anyway.Figure 2-1 shows that smell is not accepted in any of the countries 1 . Especiallythe Spanish respondents hold that clothes should not have a body odour,followed by the respondents from the Netherlands and Spain. The Norwegianrespondents seem to be less concerned about smell.The statement that clothes should smell as if newly washed is most stronglyagreed with by the Greek respondents, followed by the Spanish respondents,while the respondents from the Netherlands and Norway seem to place lessemphasis on this aspect.The third statement refers to the appearance of textiles or garments: “Youdon’t have to boil modern textiles to keep them white”. In all of the countriesthe respondents agreed less with this statement. The Spanish respondentsseem to have the most confidence in modern detergents and low temperatures,while the Greeks and Norwegians are the most sceptical.1 In the following figures the different countries will be presented in alphabetical order, i.e.,Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain.
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Appendix ASurvey of domestic laundr
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Appendix A 1199. Which temperature
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Appendix A 1211.Working, in private
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Appendix BDeclaration detergentsGre
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Appendix B 125NorwayA) Omo Ultra Ta
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Appendix CSettings of the 15°C Was
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Appendix DSettings of the 30°C Was
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