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

SOOLISED ERINEVUSED AJAKASUTUSES GENDER DIFFERENCES IN TIME USE
working-age people. The overall share of leisure time increases with growing number of
pensioners, and the total number of work hours in society decreases. In Estonia, the population
ageing process is relatively fast and has been particularly rapid during the last 20 years (Puur
and Põldma 2010). The share of people, who are at least 65 years of age, has grown from
15% to 17% during the period between the two time use surveys.
As men now spend less time on employment and women spend less time on household care,
gender gap has decreased in both types of work. Ten years ago, men spent over an hour more
on employment than women, while women spent over two hours more on household and family
than men. However, as changes in the two types of work have been of comparable size, the ratio
between them has not changed and gender gap with regard to total committed time not
decreased.
Time use of females and males in European countries
How women and men spend their time and how they divide various tasks depends on a lot of
factors. Country of residence is an important factor that influences people’s daily life (McGinnity
and Russell 2008). For instance, the average time spent on working depends on employment
indicators, legislation governing working time, and popularity of part-time work in a particular
country. Division of work in household and opportunities to combine work with family life depend
on national social policy, support systems, services and options offered. In addition, the time use
of women and men is affected by predominant gender roles and attitudes in a country and
community. (Figure 3)
Like Estonia, several European countries conducted the Time Use Survey at the beginning of the
2000s. As different age groups were surveyed in different countries, this comparison has been
based on the time use of women and men belonging to the age group 20–74. Time use and
gender differences therein have a generally similar structure in the majority of European
countries. Women and men spend nearly a half of their days on sleeping, eating and other
personal care activities. The French have the longest sleeping time. In all countries beside
Estonia, where the sleeping time is equal for men and women, women sleep slightly longer than
men. In all countries, men have more leisure time than women. The largest gender gaps were
observed in Slovenia and Lithuania, where men’s leisure time is a little over an hour longer than
that of women. The duration of leisure time of women and men in Norway and Sweden is almost
equal.
However, the largest differences between countries appear in the division of work between
women and men (see Figure 3). In all countries, men spend more time on employment than on
household care. The difference between the two types of work is the largest in Latvia, where
employment takes up over three hours more of men’s time than household tasks. However,
Belgian men spend almost similar amounts of time on household and employment duties (the
difference is 40 minutes). The opposite is true for women: they spend more time on household
care than on employment. The gap between household work and employment is the largest for
Spanish women (2 h 49 min) and the smallest for Latvian women (27 min). Gender differences
are partial reflections of different employment rates of women and men, as well as popularity of
part-time work in different countries.
Italian and Bulgarian women are predominantly occupied with household and family care,
spending over five hours a day performing household tasks. Spanish, Slovenian and Estonian
women also spend nearly five hours a day on hosuehold chores. Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish
and Latvian women spend the least amount of time (less than four hours) doing household work.
Among men, Slovenians, Bulgarians, Estonians and Swedes are the best at household care,
spending on average two and a half hours a day on these tasks. Italian and Spanish men spend
the least amount of time on household work. Thus, Italy and Spain have the largest and the
Nordic countries the smallest gender differences in the time spent on household care. In terms of
time spent on employment activities, the gap between women and men is the largest in Italy and
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MEHE KODU ON MAAILM, NAISE MAAILM ON KODU? MAN’S HOME IS THE WORLD, WOMAN’S WORLD IS HER HOME?