Total time spent in work

Mail Online article with a typically misleading headline.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organisation comprised of wealthy nations. Among its other functions the OECD gathers and releases some data relevant to the men's rights movement.

OECD data on paid and unpaid work done by men and women shows that in most countries the difference in total work is minimal when paid & unpaid work are added together. Moreover the OECD data does not include commute times which would drive up the total for men. Nor does it factor in the difficulty of the work, with men being far more likely to work outside and in more strenuous occupations.

The table below was drawn from OECD data on 2 October 2020.

Country	OECD	Total Time Spent in Work (minutes per day)
		Male	Female	Absolute Difference	Percentage Difference
Australia	Yes	475.7	483.0	7.3	1.5
Austria	Yes	500.1	517.9	17.8	3.4
Belgium	Yes	417.9	436.6	18.7	4.3
Canada	Yes	488.7	491.9	3.2	0.7
Denmark	Yes	446.2	437.4	8.8	2.0
Estonia	Yes	424.2	494.1	69.9	14.1
Finland	Yes	406.0	445.7	39.7	8.9
France	Yes	370.1	399.4	29.3	7.3
Germany	Yes	440.0	447.7	7.7	1.7
Greece	Yes	369.4	444.0	74.6	16.8
Hungary	Yes	435.0	496.3	61.3	12.4
Ireland	Yes	467.8	487.4	19.6	4.0
Italy	Yes	351.5	439.5	88.0	20.0
Japan	Yes	492.6	495.8	3.2	0.7
Korea	Yes	468.0	484.4	16.4	3.4
Latvia	Yes	506.7	541.7	35.0	6.5
Lithuania	Yes	505.9	571.2	65.3	11.4
Luxembourg	Yes	451.1	478.5	27.4	5.7
Mexico	Yes	609.8	567.6	42.2	7.4
Netherlands	Yes	430.4	426.4	4.0	0.9
New Zealand	Yes	479.0	469.0	10.0	2.1
Norway	Yes	445.9	427.4	18.5	4.3
Poland	Yes	473.6	498.2	24.6	4.3
Portugal	Yes	468.6	559.4	90.8	16.2
Slovenia	Yes	466.3	520.4	54.1	10.4
Spain	Yes	382.1	455.9	73.8	16.2
Sweden	Yes	484.0	495.3	9.3	1.9
Turkey	Yes	425.8	439.0	13.2	3.0
United Kingdom	Yes	448.7	464.8	16.1	3.5
United States	Yes	465.1	487.1	22.0	4.5
OECD - Average	N/A	453.2	480.1	26.9	5.6
China	No	481.0	525.0	44.0	8.4
India	No	442.3	536.6	94.3	17.6
South Africa	No	397.1	444.6	47.5	10.7

The Absolute Difference is the unsigned difference of the total time worked by men and women. The Percentage Difference is the Absolute Difference divided by the time worked by women and multiplied by 100 to arrive at a percentage. Data gathered in Lithuania and Mexico used different methodology as reported by the OECD.

Commentary

This and other data on the subject views all work as equally difficult, whereas in reality this is obviously not true. On average men work in more physically demanding and dangerous occupations. On average men also tend to work in occupations that require a higher level of commitment such as requiring regular unpaid overtime.

External Links

• Time spent in paid and unpaid work, by sex
• Pew Research Centre

Work

Feminists often claim that women did not work until recently. Even brief examination of the historical record should demonstrate that this was not feasible. Societies were not wealthy enough to have many people not-working until recently. Until the 19th century famine was an ever present threat even in Western society.

Assuming our species has been around for around 100,000 years, we have spent 90-100% of our time on this planet as hunter-gatherers (depending on region) and much of the rest of the time engaging in some form of agriculture. The concept of a house wife arose rather recently and represented women who did not have to engage in back-breaking agricultural or factory labour alongside their menfolk. The menfolk meanwhile kept at the back-breaking labour. Women have worked outside of the home in some form or other for most of human history. Originally they gathered and sometimes hunted, then they worked the land alongside men and children. Later a lot of them worked in factories, alongside men and children. Then eventually a few of them got to stay home while the men went out, mainly due to rising standards of living. Eventually this became common in some countries - we call them rich countries. Later the myth of the poor unfulfilled stay at home mother was born and the knowledge that this was in fact an historically privileged position was largely forgotten.