Editor's note: This article was originally published in The Surveyor, YouGov America's weekly email newsletter. It has been revised for publication here. Subscribe to The Surveyor for regular updates on YouGov's polling.
Most Americans say they always or usually do their own laundry. Women, single people, people from lower-income households, and older Americans are more likely than other groups to do their own laundry.
There's a particularly stark gender difference among people who are married. 51% of married women say they always do their own laundry, compared to 21% of married men. The difference is much smaller among people who aren't married: Within this group, 71% of women and 62% of men always do their own laundry.
While most Americans do their own laundry, 45% say someone else at least occasionally washes their clothes. Among those people, 65% say a spouse or partner sometimes washes their clothes, while 18% say a parent or guardian does. 7% have a child sometimes do their laundry, and 4% say a roommate or a friend does. 8% sometimes have their laundry done by a commercial service, including 18% of people who live in cities and sometimes have someone else do their laundry.
Younger Americans are more likely to have mom or dad wash their clothes: 25% of adults under 30 say a parent or guardian sometimes does their laundry, compared to 8% of those 30 to 44, 2% of those 45 to 64, and 0% of those 65 or older. 60% of married Americans say their spouse sometimes does their laundry.
Some of those clothes are getting a little ripe by the time Americans — or their spouse or parent — wash them. Majorities of Americans say they usually wear jeans, other pants, and sweaters more than once between washes, and just under half say they re-wear T-shirts. 80% of Americans say they wash their underwear after every use.
Men are more likely than women to say they re-wear each of these articles of clothing between washes.
Most Americans say they use a clothes dryer to dry their clothes, either entirely (41%) or mostly (34%). Just 7% say they air-dry all their clothes.
Conservatives and older Americans are more likely than other groups to entirely or mostly use a dryer.
Once that laundry is done, just over one-third of Americans say they put away the clean clothes right away. Another 30% say they put clothes away within a few hours. 31% say they don't put the clothes away for a day or more, including 11% who say it's usually two to six days before the clothes are put away, and 4% who usually take a week or more.
Younger Americans are less likely than older Americans to put their clothes away immediately. Men and women are equally likely (35% vs. 35%) to say they put their clothes away right away.
Methodology: The poll was conducted among 1,119 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of U.S. adult citizens. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 4%.
Image: Getty (Kinga Krzeminska)
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