Women now have the ultimate excuse to shame husbands into picking up a broom. Too much housework is doing their heads in.

The gender inequality in domestic duties can lead to psychological distress, researchers have found.

Women, who felt they were treated as equal by their partners despite doing more domestic duties, were less likely to suffer from mental ills.

The Swedish study said women still were burdened with the bulk of the chores, even if both partners were in paid work.

Women were most likely to be stressed by the disparity when there was socioeconomic and gender inequality in the relationship.

“If the division of domestic work is not in accordance with our expectations, eg. if we experience the division as unequal when we expected it to be equal, there is a risk of feeling deprived which thereby increases the risk of psychological ill health,” the paper in scientific journal PLoS ONE said.

“He does a little bit, but I definitely do more,” she said. “I probably do a couple of hours a day of general housework.”

Ms Pannozzo said she usually took care of the washing, sweeping and general cleaning duties, but also employed a cleaner to lighten the load.

As well as running around for her three-year-old Coco, Ms Pannozzo, who is eight-months pregnant, works about 30 hours a week as a marketing consultant.

As first appeared in Adelaide Now, 14 June 2012