The UK unpaid work gender gap: 54 minutes a day

The finding

The ONS Time Use Survey measures how people in the UK spend their time across paid work, unpaid work, sleep, leisure, and other categories. The Autumn 2023 release reported that women averaged 3 hours 37 minutes a day on unpaid work, while men averaged 2 hours 43 minutes. The 54-minute daily gap is the most-quoted figure from this release.

The ONS category of unpaid work spans housework, caring for adults and children in the household, volunteering, and informal help given to others. So the gap is not only about chores: it includes the time spent in caring roles and in the coordination work that runs alongside.

A national time-use survey has its limits. It captures what people log in diaries, not the always-on alertness behind the logged time. The 54-minute figure is therefore likely to underestimate the full asymmetry, because the cognitive layer of household work, the planning and noticing that happens between tasks, is harder to capture in a diary.

What this looks like in real households

Six hours a week is a working day. The bills get paid, the appointments get booked, the gift gets bought for Saturday’s party, the school form gets returned, and the family eats every evening. None of these are difficult on their own; together they make up a working day that does not show on any payslip. For households where one partner is doing most of the six hours, the time has to come from somewhere, often from rest.

How a shared system changes the picture

Hermo addresses one slice of the unpaid work category: the admin and coordination layer. Extracting events and tasks from email, surfacing reminders before they become urgent, and holding household facts in a shared knowledge base all reduce the time someone has to spend processing inbound information and chasing what is coming up. Hermo does not do the laundry, cook the dinner, or empty the dishwasher. The slice it addresses is the planning and processing time, and for households where one person is carrying most of that slice, that is the time that can change.

Citation

Authors

Office for National Statistics

Year

2023

Journal

Office for National Statistics official release

Sample

5,000 UK adults sampled; 3,659 diary days (37%) passed quality checks

Office for National Statistics (2023). Time use in the UK: 23 September to 1 October 2023. ONS official statistics. Read the release: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/timeuseintheuk/23septemberto1october2023.

Frequently asked questions

What does the ONS Time Use Survey measure?

It measures how people in the UK spend their time across categories including paid work, unpaid work, sleep, leisure, and personal care. Respondents complete time-use diaries that capture activities throughout the day.

What did the Autumn 2023 ONS data show about unpaid work?

UK women averaged 3 hours 37 minutes a day on unpaid work, while UK men averaged 2 hours 43 minutes. The daily gap was 54 minutes. Over a week that gap adds up to more than six hours.

What is included in unpaid work?

The ONS category includes housework, caring for children and other adults in the household, volunteering, and informal help given to people outside the household. It is broader than chores alone.

Does the survey capture cognitive household work?

Time-use diaries capture activities people consciously log, so the cognitive layer that runs between activities, the planning, noticing, and remembering, is hard to count directly. The 54-minute gap is therefore likely to understate the full asymmetry in household work.

How does Hermo address the unpaid-work gap?

Hermo addresses the admin and coordination slice, not the physical chores slice. By extracting events and tasks from email, surfacing reminders, and holding household facts in a shared knowledge base, it reduces the time one person needs to spend processing what is coming up and chasing down information. It does not cook, clean, or do the laundry.