Women spend 21% of day on Unpaid Care, men 4% — NBS

Says  Unpaid Work gap persists across urban, rural Nigeria

By Babajide Komolafe

Women in Nigeria spend 21 per cent of their day  nearly five hours  on unpaid domestic and care work, compared to just 4.1 per cent, or about one hour, spent by men, according to the Nigeria Time Use Survey (NTUS) 2024 released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The survey, Nigeria’s first stand-alone national effort to measure how individuals allocate time across paid work, unpaid care, personal activities and leisure, highlights a wide and persistent gender gap in household responsibilities across both urban and rural areas.

On average, Nigerians aged 15 years and above spend about 12.5 per cent of their day, roughly three hours, on unpaid domestic and care work. However, the burden falls disproportionately on women.

In rural areas, women devote 24.1 per cent of their day  almost six hours  to unpaid care and domestic tasks, compared to 3.7 per cent for rural men. In urban centres, women spend 19.8 per cent of their time on such activities, while men allocate 4.3 per cent.

The NBS noted that women spend 15.1 per cent of their day on unpaid domestic services and 5.9 per cent on unpaid care services, significantly higher than men, who spend 2.9 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively. Overall, women spend five times more hours than men on unpaid domestic and care work across the surveyed states.

Conversely, men dominate in System of National Accounts (SNA) productive activities, spending an average of 372.6 minutes daily compared to women’s 234 minutes. Women, however, spend substantially more time on non-SNA activities.

The Bureau said the findings underscore deeply rooted gender roles and call for targeted investments in care infrastructure and reforms aimed at redistributing unpaid work, in line with Nigeria’s commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality.

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