Leading Article: The Newish Man's place in the home

ASK the average British man whether he thinks a woman's place is in the home, and he will probably say no. Should married women have the right to work? Of course, comes the answer; only a chauvinist pig would believe otherwise. But turn the questioning to more mundane matters - where are the spare bags for the vacuum cleaner kept, which brand are the packet peas in the freezer - and a different impression emerges. There are far fewer New Men around than widely imagined. According to the Mintel survey reported today, only 2 per cent of men fully share the job of running a household. The rest may face a crisis if they lose their full-time jobs and/or are forced to live alone.

Conscious of the slowness of social change, the experts at Mintel have been forced to invent a new category, the Newish Man, to capture the one-fifth minority of Britain's male population who are only just beginning to see the sexual egalitarian light. They may take care of one job or one category of jobs around the house. But they are still allergic to dusting; and when a nocturnal nappy needs changing, they bury their heads under the pillow. Slumped in front of the weekend television, they would rather wait for the next goal than see whether the joint needs basting.

This Newish Man deserves some sympathy. Attitudes to the roles of the sexes are too deeply ingrained to be rewritten in a single generation. It is far easier for a man who learnt his father's recipe for an omelette aux fines herbes to accept the idea of sharing household work than it is for one who saw even the boiling of an egg delegated to his mother.

Changing work patterns - the decline of the single full-time breadwinner - are hurrying the process along. The rise of the couple with two (or more) part-time jobs is to be welcomed. Experience suggests that such a pattern can be more satisfying to both parties than a simple split between worker and homemaker. In time, New Employers will come to recognise that it can be cost-effective, too. Hour for hour, part-timers who think about work while at home may be more productive than full-timers who think about home while at work.