The days of "there'll be no television until you've cleaned your room" are well and truly over, as kids today are demanding big money to do the household chores. New research from Abbey National shows that a fifth of UK families with two children who pay them for doing household chores hand over almost £2,500 a year in order to keep their offspring sweet.

The research also reveals evidence suggesting that pay-packet inequality between the sexes doesn't start in the boardroom; it starts in the nursery. Of the nine chores parents were quizzed about, boys were paid more than girls in eight out of the nine - all but general cleaning around the house.

The findings suggest that an average child (16 years or younger) earns themselves a tidy income of around £1,200 a year from this pocket economy, despite more than 40 percent of parents admitting that their children do less around the house than they did themselves when they were young.

So much less, in fact, that more than half (51 percent) of children don't even make their bed before rushing out to play or setting off to school. And despite the fact that it's one of the best-paid chores, kids are not so hot on washing the family car, with only 13 percent of children doing so on a regular basis. Almost one third (31 percent) of parents who pay for chores pay £2.00 per car wash, with 13 percent stretching to the generous sum of £5.00 in the hope they won't have to get their own hands wet.

Conversely, the most-performed chore is setting the table with a third (33 percent) of kids doing so regularly. Yet this is also the chore least likely to reap any reward for kids, with eight out of 10 (80 percent) parents offering nothing in return for the cutlery being laid correctly for dinner.

Janet Connor, Abbey National's Retail Marketing Director, said: "So much for the days of mummy's little helper lending a hand around the house - today's kids well and truly know what side their bread is buttered on! What's interesting is that parents could actually save themselves more than £500 a year by hiring a cleaner for a couple of hours a week, yet they would rather incentivise their children to help out.

"And by offering children pocket money in return for chores, parents are starting to teach them one of the basic tenets of our society, namely, that hard work will be rewarded. Importantly, it also teaches children the value of money and associated lessons such as saving and budgeting."

Along with washing the car, parents are keen to offload general cleaning around the house with 37 percent offering money or sweets in return for dusting the lounge. Not surprisingly, taking out the rubbish isn't popular with parents either: more than a third would prefer to open their purse to their offspring rather than brave the rubbish bin themselves.

Children today may not be as big a help around the house as kids of past generations, yet more than half do their chores willingly and like to lend a hand, parents say. However, another quarter admit their children do their chores begrudgingly - complaining most of the time.

The survey of 702 parents with children aged 16 or under was carried out on behalf of Abbey National to help the bank fully understand working families and develop flexible financial products to suit their lifestyles.