Women do 10 more hours of housework per week than men
We’d all like to think the idea of women doing the housework is outdated and old-fashioned.
But according to a new report, women are still doing far more housework each week than men – 10 hours more in fact.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that men average around 16 hours of ‘unpaid’ work – defined as work households do themselves but could pay someone else to do for them – per week, while women do 26 hours a week.
According to the report, women continue to do more housework and childcare than men, especially those aged between 26 and 35.
The research, for 2015, showed that mothers on maternity leave do the most unpaid work, at 60 hours a week, while average full-time students did just 12 hours a week.
The only area where men put in more unpaid work is transport, such as driving people around.
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Women aged 26 to 36 did the most unpaid work, at 34 hours a week, while people over the age of 56 did the most cooking and laundry.
According to the ONS, if women were paid for their unpaid work, they would earn £259 more a week, while men would earn £166 more a week if unpaid work was paid.
Rebecca Long-Bailey, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “These findings are a strong reminder of the unfairness in the world of work, where women not only have to worry about the gender pay gap but they also shoulder the burden of unpaid work.”
