Historically, paid employment was associated with males to a large degree and, as OECD numbers show, this legacy still lives on in many countries. Even within the OECD's more developed nations, men still work for pay 100 minutes – or around an hour and 40 minutes – more than women on the average day. It is women, however, who put in a lot of the unpaid work, exceeding that of men by an average of more than two hours each day, therefore officially working more than men do.
According to the UN, unpaid work can include "meal preparation, cleaning, washing clothes, water and fuel collection and direct care of persons (including children, older persons, persons with disabilities and able-bodied adults)". OECD data shows that women's paid work was lowest in Europe and Australia/New Zealand, while the latter nations were also where women and men did most unpaid jobs. Due to this equilibrium, paid and unpaid work was almost equal between the sexes down under. However, due to Australia including more seniors in their study, this could paint a more favorable picture of non-paid work in these nations.
Asia, on the other hand, saw men and women work the most for pay while men contributed the least unpaid work (despite China also skewing older in its survey). This led to the biggest male-female work time gap among regions, with women working 41 minutes more each day then their male counterparts. This gap stood at 35 minutes in Europe, where a high unpaid labor share of women made up for their quite low labor market participation. In the United States and Canada, finally, men did around the same amount of unpaid work than in Europe but did more paid work, pushing up their overall work time. U.S. and Canadian women worked more than European females and did a little less unpaid work, leaving a gap of seven more daily minutes worked by women.
