Johannesburg - Men are still spending most of their time at work or relaxing, while most of the housework and childcare burden still seems to fall on women.
And throughout the country, it may come as no surprise, Monday is the least productive day of the week, with less time spent at work and more on leisure.
These were the findings of “A survey of time use 2010” that Statistics South Africa released on Wednesday. The survey measured how South Africans manage their time.
On average, men spend an hour more than women at their workplaces every day.
Men also spend 48 minutes more than women socialising and using mass media such as the internet every day.
Men also spend 25 minutes less than women every day caring for children or the ill, and 105 minutes less on household maintenance.
People from Gauteng spend an average of three hours and 10 minutes on so-called system of national account (SNA) activities, which includes paid work, collecting fuel and water, and actively looking for work.
Men in Gauteng also spend an extra 100 minutes a day on average on work-related activities compared to the province’s women.
But in the non-SNA category – broadly defined as unpaid care work – women still put in more hours than men.
“The largest gender difference was recorded in the caregiving activity, where the participation rate of women was more than three times that of men,” the report says.
For example, according to the nearly 40 000 respondents aged 10 and above who took part in the survey, the women spend more than a combined 9 000 hours a day on child care, compared to just 1 050 hours for men.
Meanwhile, the weekend hangover appears to make Monday the most unproductive workday throughout the country, with time spent at work being 40 minutes less than the average for the working week.
However, the weekend doesn’t start early for most as the most productive day is Friday, with an average of three-and-a-half hours spent on SNA activities.
When the leisure activities are broken down, men of all ages spend more time relaxing by socialising, watching TV or using mass media to entertain themselves.
In fact, for ages 10 and up, men spend nearly an extra 50 minutes a day on the combination of leisure activities. - The Star