Line chart-Ownership of Electrical Appliances

Vocabulary

What do the words in bold below mean? Take some notes on a piece of paper to aid your memory:

The line charts detail total percentages of electrical appliances in a given country from 1920 to 2019 and the results on housework undertaken per week. Looking from an overall perspective, it is readily apparent that all electrical appliances became more popular, in particular refrigerators and vacuum cleaners. The total time spent doing housework has also declined steadily and dramatically in the last one hundred years.

Refrigerators witnessed the most significant rise, beginning at just over 0% in 1920, surging to more than 50% by 1950, and then continuing to rise steadily until plateauing at 100% around 1980. Vacuum cleaners started higher at 30% and then rose by precisely 20% every 20 years until 1960 when growth tapered and ownership ultimately reached 100% by 1980. In contrast, proportions for washing machines began at 40%, climbed to 70% by 1960, then fell slightly, and recovered to finish the period at just above 70%.

The result for housework was that time spent washing clothes, preparing meals, and cleaning fell steadily from 50 hours a week in 1920 to 20 by 1960. After that, the decline was more gradual, reaching slightly above 10 hours by 2019.