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