Do women work more than men do ?

All wives, universally, believe they work more hours than their husbands do. Common sense tells us women work more than men do. However, if you take a scientific look at this, as 3 economists (Michael Burda of Humboldt University in Berlin, Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas, and Philippe Weil of the Free University of Brussels) did in their research on 25 countries (rich and poor), the answer to the title question is, on average, a sounding NO.

Researches divided daily 24 hours into four broad activities: "market work" that is, work for pay, typically outside the house; "homework," including housework and child care; "tertiary time," including sleep, eating, and other biological necessities that people can do only for themselves; and the time left over, which is leisure.

Throughout the world, men spend more time on market work, while women spend more time on homework. In the United States and other rich countries, men average 5.2 hours of market work a day and 2.7 hours of homework each day, while women average 3.4 hours of market work and 4.5 hours of homework per day. Adding these up, men work an average of 7.9 hours per day, while women work an average of, well, 7.9 hours per day.

Two more interesting findings from the same research report:

1) although men in many rich countries do not work less than women, they do enjoy about 20 to 30 minutes more leisure per day because they spend less time on sleep and other biological necessities. Men spend almost all of this additional leisure time watching television.

2) while men and women spend about the same time working in rich countries, women do work more than men in poor countries, and the gap widens as countries get poorer. It appears better educated husbands in rich countries are more willing to help their wives.