Paid work and work at home: counting both
"I bring in most of the money, doesn't that count?" It does, and the result now shows it. Once paid work is added, total working time is shared almost equally. The mental load, however, stays where it was.
Among the comments left after the result on the French site, a few come back with the same frustration. One man writes that he brings in most of the household's income, and that this is what pays for a cleaner. Another explains that he is the only one in paid work, often far from home, and that a test which looks only at the house makes the partner who is away feel guilty. They are right about one thing: the home is not all the work a couple does. The result now shows that.
What the ONS finds: total working time is almost equal
The Office for National Statistics measures time spent on paid work as well as on the home. In its time-use survey of March 2023, among employed adults aged 18 to 64, women spent on average 4 hours 18 minutes a day on paid work, 2 hours 37 minutes on unpaid household work and 39 minutes on unpaid care. Men spent 5 hours 1 minute, 2 hours 2 minutes and 26 minutes. Add the three together and you get about 7 hours 34 minutes for women and 7 hours 29 minutes for men (our sum of the published figures).
In other words, across the whole day, working time is shared roughly equally. What differs is the mix: more paid work on one side, more home on the other. Both things are true at once, and that is why the conversation so often goes round in circles. The home side of the gap is not new: in 2016 the ONS already found that women did 60% more unpaid work than men, 26 hours a week against 16.
What 8,698 couples on the French site show
The result now adds an "Including paid work" table and a third comparison: each person's share of total time, paid work and home together. The figures below come from the French version of the site, where 8,698 woman-man couples entered their working hours in the anonymous study.
- At home only, her median share of the time is 61%.
- Including paid work, it is 53%. Half of couples fall between 49% and 57%.
- When he works longer hours than she does, with two children, total time is shared down the middle (51% for her, median).
- When both work full time, with two children, her share is 53%.
- When she works longer hours than he does, with two children, her share is 60%.
These are couples who chose to use the French site, not a representative survey, and they live in France rather than the UK. But they point the same way as the ONS: once paid work is counted, the time gap narrows a great deal.
What paid work does not make up for
There is one thing that adding up the hours does not make disappear: thinking about what needs doing. In those French couples with two children where he works longer hours than she does, total time is split down the middle, yet she carries a median 71% of the things to keep in mind. When both work full time, still with two children, it is 68%.
This is the distinction drawn by the sociologist Allison Daminger: noticing, anticipating, deciding and checking are work in their own right, and they do not show up in the hours. A cleaner paid for out of one partner's salary takes hours of laundry off the other, and that is real. It does not take away the GP appointment to book, the swimming bag to pack or the birthday present to find.
Income is a different conversation
Several comments also ask us to count income. The site does not, and that is not an oversight. An hour of paid work, well paid or badly paid, is still an hour of someone's life, and the result compares hours, not pounds. Comparing salaries at home is a fair conversation, but a different one: about what the couple chooses to pay for, and what each person gives up so that the other can earn more.
An imbalance can be a choice, as long as it is talked about, counted and reversible. That is exactly what total time is for: putting everything each person carries on the table, so that the one who works outside the home does not feel accused, and the one who keeps the home running does not feel invisible. If you would like to see the thinking side spelled out, our article on the mental load goes back to where the idea came from.
How to use it
When you take stock, the "And paid work?" question is optional: enter each person's paid working hours per week, commuting included. The "Including paid work" table then adds the home and shows each person's total load. It sits next to the result and does not change it.
Comparisons with other couples will come later. Comparing couples in the UK with couples in France would not make sense, so the "And other couples?" section will show figures once 30 couples have taken stock in English.
This is not a score. It is another way of reading the same week, and often the one that lets both of you recognise yourselves in the result.