MEHE KODU ON MAAILM, NAISE MAAILM ON KODU? - Tartu Ülikool

SOOLISED ERINEVUSED AJAKASUTUSES GENDER DIFFERENCES IN TIME USE
Every person has only 24 hours available for performing duties and meeting needs. A part of this
limited time has to be spent on daily necessities – sleeping, eating and other personal care
activities. Indeed, sleep takes up the greatest portion of a 24-hour day. In 2010, an average
person in Estonia spent 8 hours and 53 minutes in bed i.e. slightly more than a third of a day.
There were no differences between sleep times of women and men. A little more than two hours
per day were spent on other personal care activities, such as eating and getting dressed. While it
is often believed that women spend significantly more time than men in front of the mirror, women
actually spend only 10 minutes more on this than men. Various activities associated with getting
dressed, washing and medical care take up almost an hour in a day of an average woman. The
gender difference in this category was the largest (20 minutes) between young men and young
women aged 15–24.
Leaving aside the time spent on recurring daily activities, the amount of time left for other pursuits
and entertainment is relatively small. This means that choices have to be made. Women and men
use different criteria to make these choices (Glorieuz and Koelet 2002). When planning their day,
men firstly consider their employment duties and leisure time activities. Employment is a
significant consideration for women as well but, unlike men, household work and taking care of
children are more important for them than leisure time (ibid.). The importance of leisure time for
men is reflected by its large share in their day. In 2010, men spent the greatest amount of time
after sleep on leisure activities – slightly over six hours, or one quarter of a day. Leisure time
came second for women as well, but compared to men it took up less time in a day (5 h 16 min).
For women, household work and taking care of children were in the third position in time use (4 h
8 min). Among men, household work was only fourth-placed and the time spent on that was one
and a half hours shorter than in the case of women. Various household tasks took up more than a
quarter (27%) of the daily time of women and lasted 60% longer than in the case of men.
Combining leisure time and employment is very different from balancing various household
chores and employment. As leisure time and employment belong to different areas of life, they
complement each other and are easier to reconcile. However, both employment and household
work can be described as occupied time. Fatigue and stress associated with one type of work is
carried over to the other, because they both constitute forms of work. A long time spent on
household tasks tends to reduce the time and energy available for employment (Glorieuz and
Koelet 2002). The difficulties in combining different types of work are evident in the shorter
amount of time spent by women on employment. In 2010, the average time spent on employment
tasks was over two and a half hours among women and over three hours among men.
Consequently, an average man spends over one fifth (22%) of his daily time on employment,
while an average woman only spends 18%.
Nearly half an hour a day is used for studying by both women and men, whereas men spend a
little more time on this than women. As this concerns the average time use of all people, the
amount of time spent on studying is relatively modest. Studying takes up the largest amount of
time among children aged 10–14, who study for almost four hours on an average day (incl.
weekends). Girls are somewhat more eager to study than boys – or at least they spend more
time on this. The observation that men, at an older age, spend more time on studying is in line
with the results of the Adult Education Survey 2007, which indicated that more women than men
participate in adult training but men spend more time on this (Randoja 2009).
By adding up the time spent on employment and household care, we can obtain a picture of the
total workload of women and men. As men spend more time on employment, while women spend
more time on household care, we could expect these two factors to balance each other out, so
that there would be no major differences in total workload (Deding and Lausten 2006, Glorieuz
and Koelet 2002). In Estonia, however, women’s and men’s participation in employment is at a
relatively equal level, but there is a large gender gap to the disadvantage of women when it
comes to household work. If we include both paid and unpaid work in the concept of work, we
can see that women spend on average 6 hours and 49 minutes on this. The time spent on
different types of work by men is shorter by one hour.
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MEHE KODU ON MAAILM, NAISE MAAILM ON KODU? MAN’S HOME IS THE WORLD, WOMAN’S WORLD IS HER HOME?