I suspect, too, that there are probably a lot of confounding factors at work in various situations.
In many families, boys aren’t expected to do as much housework as girls are. That can be one issue: if you aren’t taught the ins and outs of cleaning a kitchen, you might reasonably assume that “clean up the kitchen after dinner” consists of putting the dishes in the dishwasher and doesn’t necessarily involve sweeping under the high chair, taking out the trash, and so on.
In DH’s family, housecleaning-type chores were quite evenly distributed based on age/maturity/ability (i.e., a 12-year-old could be expected to clean a bathroom, and a 2-year-old to pick up toys with supervision) and not at all based on sex.
However, DH and I had very different living standards as adults. I make my bed as soon as I get out of it every morning, while he literally never made his bed as a child or as an adult. I don’t leave my bathroom in the morning until the towel is hung up, toothbrush put away, and hair/makeup tools are back in their spots. DH was never taught to do this. (To be fair, neither was I, but I self-taught as an adult.) He grew up in a house that I would consider very messy, but was happy in it, so for him a mess is a happy norm. I grew up in a house that was, bluntly speaking, filthy (think animal feces everywhere, garbage, etc), and was miserable, so I saw mess as an extension of the family dysfunction and became a neat freak.
Hoosier Daddy mentioned that his mother keeps a very tidy house. At a guess, she probably had him learn to do a lot of basic housework as a kid, or at least taught him to clean up after himself and to notice things like, say, “Oh, I spilled chocolate milk on the floor, best wipe that up” vs DH, who, if he thought of the spilled chocolate milk again beyond the annoyance of pouring another glass, would honestly assume “it’ll dry in a while, or the dog will lick it up.” (NB: We don’t have a dog, but he grew up with one always in the house.) This isn’t a man-vs-woman thing; it’s an upbringing thing. DH’s sisters would react the same way he would, though he does have one rather neat-inclined brother who’d assume that if there was a spill of chocolate milk on the floor, he’ll just go ahead and mop the whole floor while he’s at it.
I also suspect that if you aren’t taught how to clean a house in a reasonably efficient manner, then the idea of Cleaning The House is very intimidating because there are so many things to do. It was for me when I first took over running my parents’ house, and then again when I lived on my own and, later, became a mom with far more limited time. I figured out efficient routines that worked for those various stages, but though I was motivated (I do loathe being in a messy house), it still took a good bit of time to hone those routines to the point that I could describe my housekeeping as more general maintenance than perpetual firefighting–i.e., running the dishwasher every night and emptying it in the morning vs waiting 'til I was hungry and out of clean silverware, glasses, and dishes and the sink was piled high with dishes coated in caked-on food to overload the dishwasher and have to wash half the items by hand, anyway.
Of course, I have to do dishes and trash when he’s traveling for business and the kids are starting to help with unloading.
