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Data

Average daily time spent by women on domestic work (paid and unpaid)

About this data

Source
UN Statistics Division (2017) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
September 19, 2017
Date range
1997–2015
Unit
Daily hours

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

UN Statistics Division – Minimum Set of Gender Indicators

Average number of hours spent on paid and unpaid domestic work by sex.

This dataset is an excerpt from the data provided by the United Nations Statistics Division under the Minimum Set of Gended Indicators. Cross-country comparability is limited due to lack of uniform definitions. Importantly, the ages of the relevant population differ from country to country (and in a few instances, they also differ from year to year for the same country). For most low-income countries, the figures include children among the relevant population. For most high-income countries, children below 15 are excluded. Additionally, in some countries the estimates correspond only to specific regions (e.g. urban). This file provides a column with notes explaining the particular reference population in each case.

Regarding the definitions, the original source notes: "Average number of hours spent on unpaid domestic work derives from time use statistics that is collected through stand-alone time-use surveys or a time-use module in multi-purpose household surveys. Data on time-use may be summarized and presented as either (1) average time spent for participants only or (2) average time spent for all population of certain age. In the former type of averages the total time spent by the individuals who performed an activity is divided by the number of persons who performed it (participants). In the latter type of averages the total time is divided by the total relevant population (or a sub-group thereof) regardless of whether people performed the activity or not. All statistics presented in the Minimum Set on Gender Indicators on time spent in various activities are averages based on all total relevant population. This type of averages can be used to compare groups and assess changes over time. Differences among groups or over time may be due to a difference (or change) in the proportion of those participating in the specific activity or a difference (or change) in the amount of time spent by participants or both. Data presented for this indicator are expressed as an average per day. It is averaged over seven days of the week (weekdays and weekends are not differentiated)."

Retrieved on
September 19, 2017
Retrieved from
https://genderstats.un.org/#/indicators
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
UN Statistics Division. Minimum Set of Gender Indicators (2017).

Average number of hours spent on paid and unpaid domestic work by sex.

This dataset is an excerpt from the data provided by the United Nations Statistics Division under the Minimum Set of Gended Indicators. Cross-country comparability is limited due to lack of uniform definitions. Importantly, the ages of the relevant population differ from country to country (and in a few instances, they also differ from year to year for the same country). For most low-income countries, the figures include children among the relevant population. For most high-income countries, children below 15 are excluded. Additionally, in some countries the estimates correspond only to specific regions (e.g. urban). This file provides a column with notes explaining the particular reference population in each case.

Regarding the definitions, the original source notes: "Average number of hours spent on unpaid domestic work derives from time use statistics that is collected through stand-alone time-use surveys or a time-use module in multi-purpose household surveys. Data on time-use may be summarized and presented as either (1) average time spent for participants only or (2) average time spent for all population of certain age. In the former type of averages the total time spent by the individuals who performed an activity is divided by the number of persons who performed it (participants). In the latter type of averages the total time is divided by the total relevant population (or a sub-group thereof) regardless of whether people performed the activity or not. All statistics presented in the Minimum Set on Gender Indicators on time spent in various activities are averages based on all total relevant population. This type of averages can be used to compare groups and assess changes over time. Differences among groups or over time may be due to a difference (or change) in the proportion of those participating in the specific activity or a difference (or change) in the amount of time spent by participants or both. Data presented for this indicator are expressed as an average per day. It is averaged over seven days of the week (weekdays and weekends are not differentiated)."

Retrieved on
September 19, 2017
Retrieved from
https://genderstats.un.org/#/indicators
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
UN Statistics Division. Minimum Set of Gender Indicators (2017).

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Average daily time spent by women on domestic work (paid and unpaid)”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from UN Statistics Division. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260511-092124/grapher/average-daily-time-spent-by-women-on-domestic-work-paid-and-unpaid.html [online resource] (archived on May 11, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

UN Statistics Division (2017) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

UN Statistics Division (2017) – processed by Our World in Data. “Average daily time spent by women on domestic work (paid and unpaid)” [dataset]. UN Statistics Division, “Minimum Set of Gender Indicators” [original data]. Retrieved May 17, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260511-092124/grapher/average-daily-time-spent-by-women-on-domestic-work-paid-and-unpaid.html (archived on May 11, 2026).

Download

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Download the data shown in this chart as a ZIP file containing a CSV file, metadata in JSON format, and a README. The CSV file can be opened in Excel, Google Sheets, and other data analysis tools.

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Data API

Use these URLs to programmatically access this chart's data and configure your requests with the options below. Our documentation provides more information on how to use the API, and you can find a few code examples below.

Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-daily-time-spent-by-women-on-domestic-work-paid-and-unpaid.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-daily-time-spent-by-women-on-domestic-work-paid-and-unpaid.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-daily-time-spent-by-women-on-domestic-work-paid-and-unpaid.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-daily-time-spent-by-women-on-domestic-work-paid-and-unpaid.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-daily-time-spent-by-women-on-domestic-work-paid-and-unpaid.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-daily-time-spent-by-women-on-domestic-work-paid-and-unpaid.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-daily-time-spent-by-women-on-domestic-work-paid-and-unpaid.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-daily-time-spent-by-women-on-domestic-work-paid-and-unpaid.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear