Women work 50 minutes more than men daily: WEF report

Women work on average 50 minutes more a day than men, data from the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report suggests. It says the prevalence of unpaid work burdens women and estimates that economic inequalities between the sexes could take 170 years to close. The gap in economic opportunity, the WEF says, is now larger than at any point since 2008.

Nearly a quarter of a billion women have entered the global workforce over the past decade, the report says. Although men do 34% more paid work than women, women still spend more of their time on unpaid work such as housework, childcare and care for older people.

When this is factored in, the WEF calculates women work more than a month more than men per year. In India, Portugal and Estonia, this equates to more than 50 days more work for women than men per year.

In six countries men work more hours than women, but notably three of these are Nordic countries where parental leave can be shared relatively evenly between men and women.