As much as half of the world’s work is unpaid. And most of it is done by women.
This imbalance not only robs women of economic opportunities. It is also costly to society in the form of lower productivity and forgone economic growth. It follows that a fairer allocation of unpaid work would not only benefit women but would also lead to more efficient workforces and stronger economies.
For these reasons, reducing gender imbalances in unpaid work is part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Examples of unpaid work include cooking, cleaning, fetching food or water, and caring for children and the elderly. These tasks are not counted as part of economic activity because they are difficult to measure based on values in the marketplace. Yet their economic value is substantial, with estimates ranging from 10 to 60 percent of GDP.
In our new study, we find that unpaid work declines as economic development increases particularly because there is less time spent on domestic chores. Social institutions and values can constrain the redistribution of unpaid work by preventing men from sharing the burden at home.
Unpaid work declines as economic development increases.
Overworked and underpaid
It’s no secret that women disproportionately shoulder the burden of unpaid work. Less well understood is just how many more unpaid hours women put in than men on a given day. Women do 4.4 hours of unpaid work on average around the world and men only 1.7 hours.
There are large differences across countries.
In Norway, the gap is small, with women doing 3.7 hours of unpaid work, while men contribute 3. On the other extreme, in Egypt, women do 5.4 hours per day of unpaid work, and men only 35 minutes. In the US, women do 3.8 hours of unpaid work and men do 2.4 hours.