Woman cleaning floor with vacuum cleaner. Housewife or maid doing housework. Vector illustration
All those extra hours really add up (Picture: Getty/iStockphoto)

Who does the majority of the unpaid labour in your home?

That’s the cleaning, the laundry, the grocery shopping, the cooking, and looking after the children.

Despite the fact that most women now work full-time, they are also disproportionately taking on more of these domestic labour responsibilities – and working many more hours than men every week, for no money.

Studies have shown that the pandemic has made this inequality in the division of labour even worse.

The Covid pandemic has given rise to invisible labour with more women juggling both paid work and unpaid responsibilities at home. A study in May 2021 found that globally, women now spend 40% more time on unpaid work compared to men.

A Covid sub-study conducted by Understanding Society in 2020 showed that, on average, UK women spent 15 hours per week in April and May doing housework compared with men who spent 10 hours.  

When it came to childcare and home schooling, women spent nearly twice as much time compared to men – 20.5 hours per week compared to just 12 hours per week for men.

According to Airtasker, a local services marketplace, they estimate that if women spent this time on paid work and completed two tutoring jobs and two childcare tasks per week, they could earn an additional £727 each month – that’s £8,724 per year. 

Their calculations follow a study from last year that found women in Australia do an incredible 21 more hours of unpaid work every week than men.

Housework was the largest form of unpaid work, followed by caring for children, with the amount of unpaid work escalating sharply after having a child.

Unsurprisingly, the report also noted that women felt more time-stressed than men, with 38% of women saying they were time-stressed ‘often’ or ‘almost always’ – which is a figure that has been at the same high level since 2001.

This International Women’s Day, Airtasker wants to empower more women to pursue flexible work and monetise their skills. 

Despite the increase of female participation in select categories, female Taskers only make up 28% of service providers on Airtasker.  

They have even created Side Hustle Calculator to help you estimate your earning potential across different categories. It says women can earn up to £409 for two cleaning jobs per month, and up to £450 for taking on a childcare task twice a month.

That’s certainly better than doing it for free.

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