How Much Is Housework Cooking Cleaning Worth

Front Folio

Earth

United kingdom

England

Northern Ireland

Scotland

Wales

UK Politics

Business organisation

Sci/Tech

Health

Education

Entertainment

Talking Indicate

In Depth

AudioVideo

SERVICES

Wednesday, 24 Apr, 2002, 12:28 GMT 13:28 United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland

Housework 'worth' �700bn

Woman washing

Inside a couple, women do much more housework

If housework was paid, it would be worth �700bn to the UK economy, suggests a new report.

The comprehensive survey of how nosotros spend our leisure time indicates that if unpaid household chores were treated like other work, information technology would be valued at more than 3-quarters of the paid economy.

The UK 2000 Fourth dimension Apply Survey, released by the Office for National Statistics, also shows women spend nearly double the time men do on housework.

And more than one-half our time is spent sleeping, eating and watching television.

Daily Housework & Chief Chores

Men: 2hrs 20mins
Cooking
Childcare
Gardening
Pet intendance

Women: 4hrs
Cooking
Childcare
Cleaning house
Laundry

The survey involved interviews with 6,500 households, including 11,700 individuals.

Housework included providing housing, transport, nutrition, clothing and laundry services, unpaid intendance of children and adults, and voluntary activity.

Its monetary do good to the economic system was calculated using the ONS's experimental Household Satellite Account and applied to the yr 2000, although the report warned to treat the figures with some caution.

For instance, the value of meals was the cost of the ingredients and utilize of equipment, the cost of accomodation for cooking and transport for shopping, plus value of hours spent.

Woman scrubbing the floor

The average hourly 'charge per unit' of housework is �4.72

The average hourly charge per unit was �four.72, which varied between �2.59 for providing meals and �xi.xix for providing housing.

Wages

Selma James of the Wages For Housework Campaign told BBC News 24 her group thought women should be paid �500-�600 per week.

She said women have worked for and are entitled to the wage.

"We also want the acknowledgement from society that the work we are doing is central and of import," she said.

Housework counted for "basic work in society" she added.

Within married or cohabiting couples with children where both partners work full-time, the adult female spends well-nigh four hours a day on household work, and the human two hours and 20 minutes.

In 2000, women spent 27% of their time on household production and 7% in paid work, compared to men's 20% on housework and 12% in paid work.

For childcare outside the household, virtually lxx% was done by people anile over 45, probably grandparents.

Daily sport

16 mins watching on TV

iv mins taking office

A airplane pilot scheme to pay grandparents for looking after their grandchildren is beingness studied by ministers, in an effort to help single parents back to work.

The report too suggested women sleep eight minutes a mean solar day more men.

Although half our total fourth dimension is spent eating, sleeping and watching tv, eighty% of the population reported doing some course of physical exercise in the iv weeks prior to the survey.

The top three activities were walking two miles or more, swimming and go along fit.