Fresh ingredients are cheaper than ready meals, but men’s unchanging lack of interest in domestic cooking insures the continuing success of microwavable meals.
Increased rates of employment among women in the late twentieth century are the reason for the continuing decline in home-cooking, according to new research released this weekend by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
The study, which looked at data between 1980 and 2000, shows that while women took on more responsibilities outside of the household, men continued to spend relatively little time on domestic chores such as cooking.
In the 1980s over half of the household food budget was dedicated to fresh ingredients, by the 2000s that decreased to under a third, despite fresh ingredients continuing to be cheaper. However, the study argues that while the monetary cost of home cooking decreased, “shadow price” (costs that are more difficult to define and account for, such as time spent cooking) continued to increase.
Home cooked food results from the combination of ingredients and time
“Home cooked food results from the combination of ingredients and time,” the study argues, therefore the less free time people have due to employment, the more expensive domestic activities become. While in the 1970s the average woman would spend 13 hours on cooking, in the 2000s this decreased to eight hours. Comparatively, the average man continues to spend under three hours on meal preparations, suggesting that a growing preference for ready-meals simply results from a lack of time.
Additionally, home cooking is more efficient in larger households, meaning that, as couples started having less children on average, home-cooked meals became a more expensive option.
Although the study focused on data from 1980-2000, its author’s argue that little has changed in terms of national trends, as ready meals continue to grow in popularity. Meanwhile data on domestic labour and gender divide, shows an equally static picture. Gallup, an American polling service, showed that men aged between 18-35 were no more interested in equitably splitting domestic chores than older men. Although, while men continue to cook significantly less than women, they are cooking more than ever before.
However, the bleak future of home cooking predicted by the IFS might yet be saved by Zoomers, as young people are persistently shown to take a more active interest in cooking than the older generations did at their age. In recent surveys, most young people said they prefer to eat a meal they cooked themselves, rather than prepared by another member of the household, and three quarters indicate a strong preference for cooking from scratch, defying gloomy statistics. Whether young people manage to maintain their culinary interests as they enter time-consuming employment, remains to be seen.