I've travelled through South and Southeast Asia and will say I saw women doing much more work than men in rural villages. The men often take to drink (alcohol) which the women don't. It causes a lot of problems like laziness, unemployment and abuse.
Partnered women without kids worked 27% less time than unpartnered women - 2:34 vs 3:32.
== And women WITH kids? How much did they work?
Male sole parents spent 170% more time educating themselves than females.
== Was Grandma babysitting so her son could "educate" himself?
Male sole parents also coped much better than females - being much less likely to feel rushed or pressed for time.
== Why don't they feel rushed or pressed for time? Why DO women feel rushed and pressed?
Men also increased the amount of time spent on domestic activities by 34% (women’s time didn’t change).
== How much time do women already spend on domestic activities? One would think women's % would finally be able to DECREASE if men are increasing.
When child-care facilities closed down during Covid, it was mainly fathers who stepped up – increasing child-care time by 67% compared to previous surveys (female increase was 10%)
== How much child-care time do women already put in?
Societal norms make us conveniently forget what constitutes domestic duties.
Things like,
House maintenance, garden, painting, mowing, rubbish, pool, construction, renovation, vehicle maintenance, kids homework help, pets, paying bills.
Working, providing, earning, and travelling to do it takes a person away from the very place they are working to enjoy..... And it sucks, specially when you get home to be told you don't do enough.
But....our whole tax system is based on someone else saying who can claim what because they are supposedly 'more valuable' because of education, position etc., etc., but it creeps into every inch of being a Human being and besides, who is someone else to say 'you are valuable or a slacker' because of their perception. I once had a friend who worked in Administration in a Church and one day a member remarked on how much 'Freddy' worked.. I disputed this because I knew that 'Freddy' sometimes did extra shopping while out on business.. so just because he worked until late into the evening didn't mean he was always working........
Comparing is like a poison in society that will never end.
The official Australian gender pay gap is currently 14.1% for FT workers. Let’s leave aside that people are in different industries and just take this headline figure. Two weeks ago the ABS published the results of their “How Australians Use their Time” survey.
A key statistic in this survey is that amongst those in FT paid employment males spent on average 8 hours 13 minutes compared to females 7 hours 12 minutes. This is 493 minutes compared to 432 minutes which is exactly 14.1% higher!
Bettina, thanks. Very encouraging to see that we do our but. Although, I must say, while my wife is in hospital, doing all the house work and meals while still working does make one a little weary.
It was good to see that a couple of readers of the article in The Conversation pointed out to the authors that counting steps is a poor way to measure work. For example, a man taking 1,000 steps in 8 hours could be working much harder than a women taking 12,000. The reply, bristling with defensiveness, merely said that counting steps was more practical. But this only hints at the simplicity of the study's method and reveals a lack of curiosity about what the authors claim to be researching. Fitbit watches, even the cheapest models, also measure calories consumed, "zone" or effort minutes, heart rate, and sleep. Did the fitness tracker used by the researchers offer similar data that the authors did not incorporate? Other questions: Who paid for the 500 fitness trackers? The basic FB model costs about $100 US. Who taught these people how to use them? It took me days to figure out what mine could do. If all 500 people interviewed were "invited" to wear the trackers, how many did? How often were results downloaded, and to what device? Who kept track of the data? And isn't it reasonable to ask how many wide-ranging conclusions can be extrapolated from such a modest and fragmentary attempt to measure one of a culture's most complex features, its understanding and valuation of work? Relevant to comments on men's contributions in Australia is Tom Golden's post on work in terms of equality, URL below.
There is a phrase getting popular in the UK media that women have to do 'the double shift'. They're expected to do a job and to come home and look after the kids. This is all perception. I've seen a time-use survey where the participants logged what they actually did every hour. Men worked on average 44 hours per week and women 40. That's 10% more for men. This included paid work, parenting, care work (elderly) and housework. Like all these things: the gender pay gap, the pink tax, this double shift doesn't exist. I'm sure there are some lazy men married to hardworking women: there's always room in a graph of averages, towards both ends, for people who aren't average. But these are not the norm.
And during the covid lockdown we got a lot of media articles declaring women did the lion's share of childcare whilst trying to work from home. But what kind of women were working from home? Not teachers, waitresses, office cleaners, receptionists, factory workers, shop staff, hoteliers, air stewards. They were all fuloughed. No, these double-shifting, suffering women were the better off ones such as the journalists writing the articles.
Some while back in the UK women were screaming about how they should be paid for doing housework. That is, getting paid for cleaning their own belongings. - A realistic man then suggested that she should pay him, IN CASH, for any and all the 'handyman' things he did for her. Problem solved.
Women should not complain about working too much ,isn’t this what they wanted ? a career and a marriage and a family , all this adds up to a lot of time and effort. As well they might buy a house with a big mortgage , a car on finance etc . is it any wonder women are postponing childbearing. There is a lot to be said for a return to traditional family structures with the woman staying home to concentrate on raising kids and men working. This arrangement worked well and helped build a strong nation but now the birth rate has dropped to below replacement and politicians do nothing.
Another really good summary, Bettina. As you may be aware, this issue has been going on in one form or another since at least the 1970s without much evidence in support of the claim that household chores are the same as paid employment, or that women who perform everyday household chores are, in fact, unpaid. The Australian Census contains loaded questions which are specifically designed to misrepresent time being spent in household chores as "unpaid housework." The funny thing about the term "unpaid housework" is that it generally refers to something that, at least in Australian law and custom, can sometimes lead to extraordinary remuneration. For many decades chores carried out within long term marriages or de facto relationships become paid work as soon as the partnership breaks down, for whatever reason. Here's some possible candidates for payments that are actually being made for supposedly"unpaid" household chores. 1) Immediate access to the pooled income and assets of the married or de facto couple, including use of principal place of residence and access to pooled income via joint bank accounts, income from the family business, distributed income from family and discretionary trusts, rental income from investment properties plus capital gains from shares, managed investments and investment properties etc 2) Maternity leave payments paid by the government (in some cases, this is paid even though employers also pay maternity leave over the same period) 3) Family Tax Benefit A plus supplements 4) Family Tax Benefit B plus supplements 5) Child Support calculated for us by the government 6) Parenting Benefit/Single Mother's Pension 7) Delayed primary claim to the pooled assets of the marriage after break down, including houses, holiday homes and investment property plus accumulated pooled superannuation savings etc 8) Delayed primary claim to the future income of the husband to maintain the lifestyle of the wife and the upkeep of any children (this can sometimes be paid while the former partner is in another relationship, Family Tax Benefit A , Family Tax Benefit B and Child Support may also apply) 9) Delayed primary claim to retirement income derived from pooled superannuation savings and any reversionary benefit 10) Delayed access, if applicable, to the Age Pension at age 67 and 11) Senior Australians Tax Offset which indirectly pays seniors for their household chores. That makes it eleven ways where the so called second income earner is indirectly remunerated for unpaid chores. In addition, current generous child care subsidies are another way that taxpayers compensate employed women for "unpaid housework" which is clearly intended to relieve them of time spent on domestic chores. In 2016, the peak welfare body, the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS), was keen to point out that for a hypothetical single mother, the family tax benefit is not an insignificant amount, boosting the income of a median wage earner by between $20,000 and $25,000. I'll close with an interesting study that was carried out by the University of Chicago in the mid-1990s that I read about which involved periodic checking of the chores that were being done by husbands and wives over several months after each was first quizzed about their assessment of theirs' and their partners' share of household chores. The two memorable conclusions were: 1) Both the husband and the wife "vastly exaggerated" the amount of chores the wife actually performed; and 2) the same chore that was classed by the husband as not being a household chore was categorised by the wife as a household chore (example given in the study was time spent "making a cup of tea" which wives generally classified as "contributing to the family").
Women work harder than men - phooey!
I've travelled through South and Southeast Asia and will say I saw women doing much more work than men in rural villages. The men often take to drink (alcohol) which the women don't. It causes a lot of problems like laziness, unemployment and abuse.
Partnered women without kids worked 27% less time than unpartnered women - 2:34 vs 3:32.
== And women WITH kids? How much did they work?
Male sole parents spent 170% more time educating themselves than females.
== Was Grandma babysitting so her son could "educate" himself?
Male sole parents also coped much better than females - being much less likely to feel rushed or pressed for time.
== Why don't they feel rushed or pressed for time? Why DO women feel rushed and pressed?
Men also increased the amount of time spent on domestic activities by 34% (women’s time didn’t change).
== How much time do women already spend on domestic activities? One would think women's % would finally be able to DECREASE if men are increasing.
When child-care facilities closed down during Covid, it was mainly fathers who stepped up – increasing child-care time by 67% compared to previous surveys (female increase was 10%)
== How much child-care time do women already put in?
Societal norms make us conveniently forget what constitutes domestic duties.
Things like,
House maintenance, garden, painting, mowing, rubbish, pool, construction, renovation, vehicle maintenance, kids homework help, pets, paying bills.
Working, providing, earning, and travelling to do it takes a person away from the very place they are working to enjoy..... And it sucks, specially when you get home to be told you don't do enough.
I used to get attacked that often when I got home from work that I just started saying
"Hi honey, another days holiday over" when I got home from work
I dislike these comparisons...
But....our whole tax system is based on someone else saying who can claim what because they are supposedly 'more valuable' because of education, position etc., etc., but it creeps into every inch of being a Human being and besides, who is someone else to say 'you are valuable or a slacker' because of their perception. I once had a friend who worked in Administration in a Church and one day a member remarked on how much 'Freddy' worked.. I disputed this because I knew that 'Freddy' sometimes did extra shopping while out on business.. so just because he worked until late into the evening didn't mean he was always working........
Comparing is like a poison in society that will never end.
Please read and comment on my recent OLO article (https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=22414) There is also a version here(https://clubtroppo.com.au/2023/03/31/the-bigotry-we-are-blind-to/#comment-716400)
As well as Tina's!
The official Australian gender pay gap is currently 14.1% for FT workers. Let’s leave aside that people are in different industries and just take this headline figure. Two weeks ago the ABS published the results of their “How Australians Use their Time” survey.
A key statistic in this survey is that amongst those in FT paid employment males spent on average 8 hours 13 minutes compared to females 7 hours 12 minutes. This is 493 minutes compared to 432 minutes which is exactly 14.1% higher!
I fucking love stats!
The evolution of human physiology seems to indicate men have been working harder than women through the species entire history.
Bettina, thanks. Very encouraging to see that we do our but. Although, I must say, while my wife is in hospital, doing all the house work and meals while still working does make one a little weary.
So good to read a rare, balanced, look at Male/Female relationships! Keep up the good work Tina :-)
It was good to see that a couple of readers of the article in The Conversation pointed out to the authors that counting steps is a poor way to measure work. For example, a man taking 1,000 steps in 8 hours could be working much harder than a women taking 12,000. The reply, bristling with defensiveness, merely said that counting steps was more practical. But this only hints at the simplicity of the study's method and reveals a lack of curiosity about what the authors claim to be researching. Fitbit watches, even the cheapest models, also measure calories consumed, "zone" or effort minutes, heart rate, and sleep. Did the fitness tracker used by the researchers offer similar data that the authors did not incorporate? Other questions: Who paid for the 500 fitness trackers? The basic FB model costs about $100 US. Who taught these people how to use them? It took me days to figure out what mine could do. If all 500 people interviewed were "invited" to wear the trackers, how many did? How often were results downloaded, and to what device? Who kept track of the data? And isn't it reasonable to ask how many wide-ranging conclusions can be extrapolated from such a modest and fragmentary attempt to measure one of a culture's most complex features, its understanding and valuation of work? Relevant to comments on men's contributions in Australia is Tom Golden's post on work in terms of equality, URL below.
https://menaregood.substack.com/p/equality-a-step-down-for-women
There is a lot I could say, but today I'm just going to say what I think of this article >>> https://theconversation.com/women-work-harder-than-men-our-anthropological-study-reveals-why-196826
what a load of sh*t!
😖😖😖😖😖😖😖😖😖
There is a phrase getting popular in the UK media that women have to do 'the double shift'. They're expected to do a job and to come home and look after the kids. This is all perception. I've seen a time-use survey where the participants logged what they actually did every hour. Men worked on average 44 hours per week and women 40. That's 10% more for men. This included paid work, parenting, care work (elderly) and housework. Like all these things: the gender pay gap, the pink tax, this double shift doesn't exist. I'm sure there are some lazy men married to hardworking women: there's always room in a graph of averages, towards both ends, for people who aren't average. But these are not the norm.
And during the covid lockdown we got a lot of media articles declaring women did the lion's share of childcare whilst trying to work from home. But what kind of women were working from home? Not teachers, waitresses, office cleaners, receptionists, factory workers, shop staff, hoteliers, air stewards. They were all fuloughed. No, these double-shifting, suffering women were the better off ones such as the journalists writing the articles.
Some while back in the UK women were screaming about how they should be paid for doing housework. That is, getting paid for cleaning their own belongings. - A realistic man then suggested that she should pay him, IN CASH, for any and all the 'handyman' things he did for her. Problem solved.
Women should not complain about working too much ,isn’t this what they wanted ? a career and a marriage and a family , all this adds up to a lot of time and effort. As well they might buy a house with a big mortgage , a car on finance etc . is it any wonder women are postponing childbearing. There is a lot to be said for a return to traditional family structures with the woman staying home to concentrate on raising kids and men working. This arrangement worked well and helped build a strong nation but now the birth rate has dropped to below replacement and politicians do nothing.
Another really good summary, Bettina. As you may be aware, this issue has been going on in one form or another since at least the 1970s without much evidence in support of the claim that household chores are the same as paid employment, or that women who perform everyday household chores are, in fact, unpaid. The Australian Census contains loaded questions which are specifically designed to misrepresent time being spent in household chores as "unpaid housework." The funny thing about the term "unpaid housework" is that it generally refers to something that, at least in Australian law and custom, can sometimes lead to extraordinary remuneration. For many decades chores carried out within long term marriages or de facto relationships become paid work as soon as the partnership breaks down, for whatever reason. Here's some possible candidates for payments that are actually being made for supposedly"unpaid" household chores. 1) Immediate access to the pooled income and assets of the married or de facto couple, including use of principal place of residence and access to pooled income via joint bank accounts, income from the family business, distributed income from family and discretionary trusts, rental income from investment properties plus capital gains from shares, managed investments and investment properties etc 2) Maternity leave payments paid by the government (in some cases, this is paid even though employers also pay maternity leave over the same period) 3) Family Tax Benefit A plus supplements 4) Family Tax Benefit B plus supplements 5) Child Support calculated for us by the government 6) Parenting Benefit/Single Mother's Pension 7) Delayed primary claim to the pooled assets of the marriage after break down, including houses, holiday homes and investment property plus accumulated pooled superannuation savings etc 8) Delayed primary claim to the future income of the husband to maintain the lifestyle of the wife and the upkeep of any children (this can sometimes be paid while the former partner is in another relationship, Family Tax Benefit A , Family Tax Benefit B and Child Support may also apply) 9) Delayed primary claim to retirement income derived from pooled superannuation savings and any reversionary benefit 10) Delayed access, if applicable, to the Age Pension at age 67 and 11) Senior Australians Tax Offset which indirectly pays seniors for their household chores. That makes it eleven ways where the so called second income earner is indirectly remunerated for unpaid chores. In addition, current generous child care subsidies are another way that taxpayers compensate employed women for "unpaid housework" which is clearly intended to relieve them of time spent on domestic chores. In 2016, the peak welfare body, the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS), was keen to point out that for a hypothetical single mother, the family tax benefit is not an insignificant amount, boosting the income of a median wage earner by between $20,000 and $25,000. I'll close with an interesting study that was carried out by the University of Chicago in the mid-1990s that I read about which involved periodic checking of the chores that were being done by husbands and wives over several months after each was first quizzed about their assessment of theirs' and their partners' share of household chores. The two memorable conclusions were: 1) Both the husband and the wife "vastly exaggerated" the amount of chores the wife actually performed; and 2) the same chore that was classed by the husband as not being a household chore was categorised by the wife as a household chore (example given in the study was time spent "making a cup of tea" which wives generally classified as "contributing to the family").