Australian women feel pressed for time as men still do less housework, ABS data reveals

More than a third of Australian women feel pressed for time as they continue to spend more of their free hours than men on household chores, data shows.

Despite increased awareness of the gender divide and anecdotal suggestions of generational change, the report shows women still dedicate more time than men to domestic activities, equating to about an hour a day on household chores such as cleaning, preparing meals and shopping.

The new data, released on Wednesday, dives into how Australians aged 15 and over used their time in 2024.

Respondents indicated that they felt a similar level of stress to the last ABS survey in 2020-21.

The latest How Australians Use Their Time report found the additional unpaid workload on women was prominent for activities such as housework.

About 57 per cent of women reported spending time tidying and cleaning up the home compared to about 35 per cent of men.

Men typically picked up more of the gardening and home and vehicle maintenance workload.

While more women then men participated in home-life administration such as banking, paying bills and planning, on average men spent more time actually performing these activities.

Mothers also spent about an hour more a day caring for children under 15 than men.

The tasks included providing personal care for the child and playing or doing homework with them.

Nearly a quarter of people said they multi-tasked by doing household work while looking after a child.

And working from home seemingly came with a second shift, with people spending an extra hour a day on unpaid tasks while working, with about 9 per cent saying this included looking after a child.

The burden of such busy lives is flowing into people’s emotional wellbeing — 36 per cent of women and 30 per cent of men feeling rushed or pressed for time in 2024.

The issue was most significant in people aged 15 to 24, with about 45 per cent of women in this demographic feeling rushed compared to about 31 per cent of men.

It was a similar situation for women aged between 35 to 44, with almost half feeling time stress — a slight decrease from the 55 per cent figure in the 2020-21 study.

The high stress levels most commonly came down to a work-life balance struggle, especially for parents with children under 15.

For Australians at work, men again reported spending more time on employment activities than women, by almost an hour more a day.

Despite a slight drop from the 2020-21 study, about 91 per cent of people participated in free time activities such as watching television, sport and exercise and other social, recreation and leisure activities.

Watching TV was the most common leisure activity, with about 62 per cent of people watching for an average of three hours a day, down from 75 per cent in the previous study.

Digital downtime was also common with about a quarter of Australians spending about 90 minutes a day scrolling social media, checking emails and browsing online.

Free time was less frequent for parents, who averaged about 3.5 hours a day compared to non-parents who enjoyed about six hours of downtime.

Women were likely to socialise in person, while men were spend more time playing video or mobile games.

It was especially prominent in those aged between 15 and 24, with younger men spending nearly four hours a day playing games.