In Unsurprising News, Australian Men Still Aren’t Doing As Much Housework As Women

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has shed light on the schedule differences between men and women, and lo and behold, dudes are having a pretty decent time these days.

Figures from the ‘How Australians Use Their Time’ report released on Friday found that women undertake more unpaid work activities each day — a whole hour and 19 minutes on average, even — including domestic work, child care, adult care, and voluntary work.

Of the domestic activities, 70 percent of women were undertaking housework, 75 percent organising food and drink prep or service, and 38 percent shopping for the home.

Additionally, women are more likely to feel more rushed or pressed for time, with 38 percent reported always feeling like they’re racing against the clock, in comparison to 32 percent of men. For the 25-34 year age bracket, the figure is more stretched, with over 49 percent of women, compared to 41 percent of men, and for 15-24-year-olds, 44 percent of women compared to 25 percent of men.

“The publication provides a snapshot of how people balance their time between work, leisure, caring, and other activities,” said Director of Social Surveys and Statistics, Lisa Scanlon in a statement.

“On average, females spent four hours and 31 minutes a day doing unpaid work activities. Males spent over an hour less on these activities, averaging three hours and 12 minutes a day,” continued Scanlon. “Less than half of males (42 percent) spent time on housework.”

It comes after the Journal of Sex Research published that Australian women’s sex drives plummet rock bottom when their partners don’t share the mental and physical load of making a house a home.

Lead Economist at Impact Economics, Angela Jackson, told the Sydney Morning Herald that women are doing the same amount of unpaid work give or take, as they were more than 15 years ago when the last survey took place.

“That’s almost a generation, and yet there isn’t actually a huge change in terms of that balance overall,” she said. “We have seen a rise in women working, but women still have less free time, effectively, than men, so they’re still doing more unpaid work that men in society.”

The Time Use Survey took place between November 2020 and July 2021 — noting the COVID-19 context as well of border closures and lockdowns.