A group of researchers has found that 4 in 10 hours allocated to domestic tasks today may be automated within the decade.

Researchers from Ochanomizu University and the University of Oxford found that an average of around 40% of domestic work involving unpaid housework or the caring for family members could become automated in the next 10 years.

Grocery shopping was the household task that is most likely to become automated, with 59% of such work considered possible to automate in the coming decade. The study found that 52% of tasks involving the use of services such as banking transactions would be likely headed for automation, while 50% of shopping for nongrocery items could be automated in the next 10 years.

The researchers also estimated that 44% of tasks involving cleaning and cooking are expected to become automated.

On the other hand, tasks involving caring for family members, such as teaching children and looking after them or elderly relatives, were found to be the most difficult to automate, with an average of only 28% of care work expected to be readily automated in the next 10 years.

Among these tasks, hands-on child care was believed to be the least automatable at 21%.

The findings are based on data collected from 65 artificial intelligence experts in Japan and the U.K. who assessed the likelihood of 17 types of domestic tasks becoming automated.

The study showed that experts from the U.K. were most likely to believe that automation could reduce the amount of unpaid domestic work time by 42%, while the figure for Japan-based experts was 36%. The authors explained that this may be because in the U.K., technology is thought of as a means for labor replacement, but in Japan, technology is seen as working in tandem with people.

The study suggests that automation of domestic tasks would likely impact women more than men, as working-age men in the U.K. spend only around half as much time on such tasks as working-age women. Japanese men spend just 18% of the time spent by women on domestic tasks.