New study
Women do 72 billion hours of unpaid care work
Looking after children, doing housework, caring for relatives – all of this counts as the hours of unpaid care work.
© ABCreative / Adobe Stock
On the occasion of Equal Care Day, the hours of care work performed by women and men were compared. The numbers are shocking.
It is data from 30,000 respondents from around 15,000 households, which comes from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and was analyzed in a long-term study by the Prognos research institute. The numbers refer to the year 2021. Does it look significantly different today? Questionable. Even if we wish we could. So let’s take a look at reality:
72 billion unpaid hours are worked by women
Over 60 percent of the care work is done by women, which in numbers means: A total of 117 billion hours are spent at home Care work achieved, 72 billion of which by women. This means you spend significantly more time on child care, household chores and care. Men are ahead in just two areas: repairs and gardening. According to the study available to the Funke media group, the common gender stereotypes are fulfilled in the majority of households.
How much would the wages be for the care work done?
Based on the hours determined, the researchers also calculated what the salary would be if they were paid at the average hourly wage. If childcare and elderly care were taken into account, this would be incredible 1.2 trillion euros! And only 826 billion euros related to women. Crazy numbers that once again show what women do unpaid in our society. And that a lot still needs to happen before the gender care gap is finally closed.
Sources used: zeit.de, zdf.de