The Fairness Score: how fairly your home is shared, as one number
Equal House gives every household job an effort weight, adds up who did what, and turns it into a score from 0 to 100 that the grown-ups can both see. It allows for who was at work, it leaves the children out of it, and it never names a winner. It answers one question: is the work being shared evenly?
A 62/38 week, by effort
What the score is
The Fairness Score is a number from 0 to 100 on the Tasks tab. 100 means the grown-ups carried the same load. The further apart you are, the lower it goes. Under it, a bar for each of you shows your share of the work.
It is worth having because housework is easy to undercount. Most of it is five minutes here and twenty there, and the person doing it is the only one keeping the tally. A shared number takes the tally out of anyone’s head and puts it where you can both see it, and argue with it if you think it is wrong. Tap How is this worked out? under the dial and the app shows the sum with your own names and points.
You can look at it over a week, a month or a year, so a busy fortnight reads as a blip rather than a pattern.
How it is worked out
Every job carries effort points. They come from four things the app knows about the job:
difficulty × (1 + minutes ÷ 30) × unpleasantness × skill
- Difficulty, 1 to 5: how much the job takes out of you, not how long it lasts.
- Time: 1 + minutes ÷ 30, so an hour-long job weighs three times a quick one.
- Unpleasantness: 1 for a neutral job, up to 2 for the ones nobody volunteers for.
- Skill: a little extra for jobs that need know-how, such as the budget or the gutters.
Here is how that comes out for some of the 53 chores on our household chores list, which uses the same ratings as the jobs in the app:
| Job | Minutes | Difficulty | Unpleasant | Skill | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Empty the dishwasher | 5 | 1 | × 1.1 | × 1 | 1.28 |
| Wipe down the kitchen sides | 10 | 1 | × 1.2 | × 1 | 1.60 |
| Clean the downstairs loo | 10 | 2 | × 2 | × 1 | 5.33 |
| Walk the dog | 30 | 2 | × 1 | × 1 | 4.00 |
| Take a load to the tip | 45 | 2 | × 1.6 | × 1 | 8.00 |
| Clean the bathroom | 30 | 3 | × 2 | × 1 | 12.00 |
| Do the food shop | 60 | 3 | × 1.4 | × 1 | 12.60 |
| Deep clean the oven | 60 | 3 | × 2 | × 1 | 18.00 |
Done for a normal week, all 53 jobs come to about 26 hours and 303 effort points. Your household’s list will be shorter or longer, and you can change any job’s time and difficulty in the app.
The app then adds up each grown-up’s points, allows for how available each of you was (more on that below), and measures how far the split is from even. With two of you and no work schedules set, that comes down to a simple sum: 100 minus half the gap. A 60/40 week is a gap of 20, so it scores 90. With three or more of you, it measures how far the whole household is from an even split, rather than the distance between any two people.
Why it isn’t hours
Counting jobs is the obvious way to split housework, and it is the least fair. Emptying the dishwasher is five minutes; the food shop is an hour. Do half the jobs each and one of you can still be doing three times the work.
Counting hours is better, but it still treats ten minutes cleaning the loo the same as ten minutes watering the plants. Nobody who has done both believes that. Effort points start from the time a job takes and then weight it for how hard, how unpleasant and how skilled it is.
Take the week in the worked example below. Measured three ways, the same week tells three stories:
By jobs ticked
44/56
Alex did 18 jobs to Sam’s 14. Alex looks like the one doing more.
By minutes
63/37
Sam 355 minutes, Alex 205. As a score that would be 87, well shared.
By effort
71/29
Sam 83.5 points, Alex 33.8. The score is 79: a bit lopsided.
Sam’s week is the school run, the packed lunches, the food shop and the bathroom. Alex’s is mostly the dishwasher and the kitchen sides. Alex ticked more boxes; Sam did the heavier jobs.
Try it
Move the sliders to change who carried what, add a third grown-up, or put someone at work for part of the week. The score is worked out with the same sum the app uses.
Fairness Score 79 out of 100: A bit lopsided.
The bars are who did what. The score allows for who was at work.
What the colours mean
The bands sit high on purpose. A 70/30 week is not well shared, and the app does not call it green.
-
90–100 · Beautifully balanced
About as even as real life gets.
-
86–89 · Well shared
Roughly 64/36 or better.
-
75–85 · A bit lopsided
One of you is doing noticeably more: 65/35 to 75/25.
-
Under 75 · One person is carrying it
Worse than 75/25. Worth a conversation.
In the first week the number is drawn in grey and labelled Settling in: until there are seven days of data and a handful of jobs ticked off, a couple of tasks can swing it either way. With only one grown-up, or nothing logged yet, the dial shows no number at all, because a one-person household would otherwise score a perfect 100 at exactly the moment someone is doing everything.
Work, shifts and time away
A full-time job should not come with a full share of the chores as well. Set each grown-up’s work schedule, as weekly hours or as real shifts on dates, and the score expects less of whoever is at work. Only work between 7am and 10pm counts, because that is when household jobs happen, and a night shift counts the seven hours of sleep after it. A working day reduces what is expected of someone; it never takes it to nothing.
The bars under the dial still show who did what. The score then judges whether that was fair given the week each of you had. In the worked example, if Alex works five eight-hour days while Sam is at home, the same 71/29 week scores 90. If Sam is the one working those days and still doing the heavier jobs, it scores 70.
Mark someone as away and Auto-Balance and A fairer week ahead won’t give them jobs due while they are gone, and in a week with time away, Bric’s page shows where a fair split falls for the days each of you was home. The dial itself reports the work that was done, so a week when one of you was away for half of it will show that.
Auto-Balance
Under the dial, Auto-Balance the week shares out the jobs that are still to do. It takes the heaviest first and gives each to whichever grown-up leaves the score highest, allowing for who is at work that day. Then it tells you how many tasks it shared out and the score the week is on track for, without naming anyone.
It keeps to some firm rules:
- Finished work stays where it is.
- A job pinned to one person stays with them.
- Nobody is given a job on a day they are marked away, or in their quiet hours.
- It shares work between the grown-ups only, never onto a child.
- Press it twice and the second press moves nothing.
If you would rather choose, A fairer week ahead looks at the coming week and suggests which jobs could move and to whom, with the score now and the score after. Nothing moves until you accept a suggestion.
What it never does
It doesn’t blame
The score describes the household, not a person. Auto-Balance never names anyone, and the week in review counts what you got done between you and names no winner.
It doesn’t score the children
Children’s jobs are kept separate. They earn stars and pocket money in Kid Zone, and never count for or against either grown-up.
It doesn’t punish a paid job
Work hours and shifts lower what is expected of someone, so being at work all week is not marked down as doing too little at home.
It doesn’t pretend
No number for a one-adult household, a grey “Settling in” for the first week, and the sum on screen whenever you want to check it.
A worked example
Sam and Alex, one week, using real jobs from the chores list. Neither has a work schedule set.
Sam
- Morning school run × 5 26
- Make the packed lunches × 5 22.5
- Do the food shop 12.6
- Clean the bathroom 12
- Deal with the school emails and forms 5.6
- Plan next week’s meals 4.8
14 jobs 83.5 points
Alex
- Empty the dishwasher × 7 9.0
- Walk the dog × 3 12
- Wipe down the kitchen sides × 3 4.8
- Water the plants × 2 2.7
- Put a wash on × 2 2.9
- Put the bins and recycling out 2.4
18 jobs 33.8 points
- 1. Between them they did 117.3 points of work.
- 2. Sam’s share is 71%, Alex’s is 29%.
- 3. The gap between them is 42. Half the gap is 21.
- 4. 100 − 21 = 79 · A bit lopsided
(The app rounds the exact shares, so the sum it shows can differ from rounded percentages by a point.) Give Alex the bathroom and the food shop instead and the same week scores 100. If Alex works five eight-hour days, the score allows for it: Alex’s availability that week is about 62% of someone at home, and the same split scores 90.
Watch it worked out
The Fairness Score, explained
How Equal House splits housework by effort rather than by counting tasks: effort weights, the working it shows you, the three colours, and week, month or year.
Read the transcript
Nobody ever wins that argument. So here's a number you can both look at instead.
A big shop isn't a bin bag. Move the difficulty and the time, and the effort points move with them.
Sixty points against twenty-two. That's seventy-three, twenty-seven — not five tasks each.
It allows for how available each of you is, so an uneven split can still score well.
Green from eighty-six, amber from seventy-five, and red below that — worth a conversation.
Week, month or year — and what's shared out, or what actually got done. Check more than one.
Equal House — share the load, fairly.
Questions
What is a Fairness Score?
A number from 0 to 100 that says how evenly the household work is being shared between the grown-ups. 100 means everyone carried the same load. The further apart you are, the lower it goes. Equal House works it out from the effort of each job, not from how many jobs were ticked off.
How is the score calculated?
Each job carries effort points: its difficulty (1 to 5) × a time weight of 1 + minutes ÷ 30 × how unpleasant it is × how much skill it takes. The app adds up each grown-up’s points, divides each total by how available that person was (so time at work counts), and measures how far the result is from an even split. With two grown-ups and no work schedules set, the score is simply 100 minus half the gap: a 60/40 split is a gap of 20, so it scores 90.
Why not just count hours?
Because ten minutes cleaning the loo and ten minutes watering the plants are not the same job. Effort points use the time a job takes, and then weight it for how hard, unpleasant or skilled it is. In our worked example, counting minutes would call the week green when the effort is clearly lopsided.
What do the colours mean?
Green from 86 (90 and over reads “Beautifully balanced”, 86 to 89 “Well shared”), amber from 75 to 85 (“A bit lopsided”), and red under 75 (“One person is carrying it”). A 64/36 split is still green; 75/25 is the last amber.
Does it count the children’s chores?
No. The score is about the grown-ups. Children’s jobs are kept on their own, where they earn stars and, if you choose, pocket money in Kid Zone. A child doing a chore never counts for or against either parent.
What if one of us works full time?
Set each grown-up’s work schedule, by weekly hours or by real shifts on dates, and the score expects less of them while they are at work, and while they sleep after a night shift. The bars still show who did what; the score judges whether that was fair given the week each of you had.
Does Auto-Balance move jobs that are already done?
No. Finished work stays where it is. Auto-Balance shares out the week’s jobs that are still to do, between the grown-ups who are free, skipping anyone away that day or in their quiet hours, and leaves any job pinned to one person with them.
Why does our score look odd in the first week?
Until there is a week of data and a handful of jobs ticked off, a couple of tasks can swing the number either way. The app draws it in grey and says “Settling in” rather than giving it a verdict colour. With only one grown-up, or nothing logged, it shows no number at all.
More reading: What is a Fairness Score?, dividing chores fairly between partners, what the score on your Tasks tab means and the Fairness Engine.
See your own household’s score
Add your jobs, tick them off as the week goes, and the score builds itself. On your phone, or on your computer.