Statistics in Focus: Population and social conditions. How is the time of women and men distributed in Europe?.

Abstract

Although patterns of time use are generally quite similar throughout Europe, some interesting differences can be observed between women and men and between the countries surveyed. On average, women aged 20 to 74 spend much more time than men on domestic work, ranging from less than 50% more in Sweden to over 200% more in Italy and Spain (table 1). Women spend most time doing domestic work in Italy, Estonia, Slovenia, Hungary and Spain, around 5 hours or more per day. The lowest figures are found in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Latvia - less than 4 hours per day.