Australia’s Time Use Survey reveals how far we have to come

There’s been a lot of talk about the gender pay gap of late, largely in part thanks to the data released by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency last week, which painted a dire picture of just how bad income disparity between men and women in Australia is.

But here’s a statistic that wasn’t included in the agency’s report: each week, Australian women undertake $771 worth of unpaid work. Men’s unpaid work amounts to under $500. In real terms, that equates to a domestic labour pay gap of over 50 per cent. Makes the workplace gender pay gap look positively mild in comparison.

This data, which comes courtesy of the recently reinvigorated Australia’s Time Use Survey, reveals women are being paid for 45 per cent of their contribution to the economy, in contrast to men’s 69 per cent.

The survey measures the average hours and minutes that men and women spend on unpaid work and care, including caring for children, ageing or disabled family members, and doing housework – activities that are essential in keeping households, the economy and society more broadly running. These are tasks that have undisputable productive value, but because they are unpaid, they aren’t counted in official measurements of our economy and labour force.

Using conventional measurements from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ labour data, which count paid work only, would say that women’s share of total workforce effort in the economy is just 37 per cent. Once the workforce value of the unpaid work and care they do, the share climbs to 47 per cent.

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Yet, because this work is still largely thought of and seen as “women’s work”, it gets less attention and status.

Ignoring unpaid work and care – particularly when the theme of this year’s UN International Women’s Day is “Count Her In” – gives a misguided picture of the true state of our economy.

Take COVID-19 as just one example. When Australia was declared as being “in recession” during COVID-19 lockdowns on account of a slowdown in official measurements of the economy, many households had never been more productive. More housework, more childcare, and more time looking after sick family members during lockdowns, all amounted to women with children doing an additional $550 worth of unpaid work weekly, on top of their existing load. Compared to men’s $430 worth of extra unpaid work, this pushed the domestic labour gap even wider.