Sekisui House

Sumitomo Forestry Group may not be a name that rolls off the tongue, but they have for some time been amongst the largest home builders in Australia, along with a couple of other Japanese brands.

Sekisui House in Daiwa owns some of the other largest builders in the country.

They, of course, own building companies around the world.

They have very advanced manufacturing systems, management systems.

Japanese fathers increasingly believe they are doing their share of housework, but many mothers see things differently, according to a survey on perceptions of household responsibilities.

Some seventy-nine point three percent of men said they actively participate in housework, but only sixty-three point nine percent of women said the same of their husbands, a gap of more than fifteen percentage points, according to Sekisui House Ltd.'s Male Parental Leave White Paper 2026 released on September seventeenth.

The perception gap has widened markedly over the past seven years.

When Sekisui House issued its first report in twenty nineteen, forty-seven point one percent of men rated themselves as active participants in housework, below the fifty point nine percent of women who rated their husbands that way.

The latest survey of nine thousand seventy-two parents across Japan also found that women's burden from invisible housework was virtually unchanged by whether their husbands had taken parental leave.

Invisible housework consists of numerous small, often unnamed tasks, unlike visible chores such as washing dishes or taking out the trash.

It is important for both husbands and wives to first recognize that this difference in perception exists.

Leave isn't enough.