Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Who Does More, Men or Women?

Everyone knows that women do more housework than men. Each year the American Time Use Survey documents the difference. The 2017 survey finds women aged 15 or older spending an average of 2.2 hours a day doing what it calls "household activities," while men devote only 1.4 hours a day to these tasks. Household activities include cooking, cleaning, laundry, yard work, pet care, home repair, vehicle care, and household management such as paying bills.

In every age group, women do more housework. The gap is greatest among the youngest adults—under age 25—where women spend twice as much time as men engaged in household activities. The gap declines fairly steadily with age. Among people aged 65 or older, women do only 22 percent more housework than their male counterparts.

But there's more to a day's work than housework. There's also paid work and child care. Men spend 47 percent more time than women working for pay on an average day. Women spend twice as much time as men taking care of household children. What happens when you add up the time men and women devote to all three responsibilities? It turns out, there is near equality in the amount of time men and women spend doing housework, paid work, and childcare. Men devote 5.60 hours a day to these activities and women 5.35 hours—a difference of only 18 minutes a day, with men doing the extra time. Even if you break it down by age, men and women spend nearly equal amounts of time doing what needs to be done on an average day...

Difference in time women and men devote to housework, paid work, and child care
Aged 15 to 19: women, 24 minutes more
Aged 20 to 24: men, 1 minute more
Aged 25 to 34: women, 1 minute more
Aged 35 to 44: men, 13 minutes more
Aged 45 to 54: men, 11 minutes more
Aged 55 to 64: men, 17 minutes more
Aged 65-plus: women, 1 minute more

Source: Demo Memo analysis of the 2017 American Time Use Survey

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