The Unpaid Care Divide

The short answer

On an average day, Australian women do more unpaid work than men: more housework, more cooking and more time with children. Women are also two-thirds of primary carers, the people who give the most help to someone with disability or an older family member. That unpaid work takes time out of paid work, and the cost shows up in women’s pay and super.

The figures below come from the ABS time use survey, in which people record what they did across a whole day. The ABS changed the survey method in 2024 and says the changes reduce comparability with the previous survey in 2020–21, so this page does not compare the two.

Who does the unpaid work each day

On the day they recorded, 90% of women and 81% of men did some unpaid work. Women who did spent 4 hours 53 minutes on it, about 1 hour 1 minute more than men.

Domestic work, which the ABS defines as running a household without counting care of people, shows the same pattern. 86.4% of women did some, against 75.1% of men, and women who did spent 3.5 hours on it against 3.0 hours for men.

Men were more likely than women to do gardening and home or vehicle maintenance. Fewer people do those jobs on a given day: 15.1% of men gardened and 7.6% did maintenance, while 53.8% cooked.

Parents and children

Among parents of children under 15, 88% of mothers looked after their children on the day, compared with 72% of fathers. Mothers who did spent 4 hours 38 minutes on it, 1 hour 9 minutes more than fathers.

Parents also had less free time. They had 3 hours 38 minutes of free time a day, 2 hours 27 minutes less than people without children. Across everyone, women had 0 hours 27 minutes less free time a day than men.

The difference held on days people worked from home. On those days, women spent 3 hours 48 minutes on unpaid work and men 3 hours 1 minute.

Caring for family members who need help

In 2022, 3.0 million Australians, 11.9% of people living in households, gave unpaid help or supervision to someone with disability or aged 65 or over. 12.8% of women were carers, compared with 11.1% of men.

The gap widens among primary carers, the people who give the most help with moving around, personal care and communication. Of the 1.2 million primary carers, 67.7% were women, and their average age was 54. The difference peaks in mid-life. Women aged 35–44 outnumbered men as primary carers by more than 4 to 1 (156,000 against 38,900). At 45–54, the figures were 191,200 and 58,400.

What it costs in paid work

Time spent caring comes out of paid work. In August 2026, 43.0% of employed women worked part-time, against 20.5% of employed men. On the day of the time use survey, 48% of men and 38% of women did paid work, and men who worked did so for 8 hours 55 minutes against 7 hours 58 minutes for women.

Those hours add up. She’s Price(d)less, KPMG’s analysis with WGEA and Diversity Council Australia, links 26% of the gender pay gap to years spent out of the workforce. Lower pay and fewer paid hours also mean less super. Read more in Why the Gender Pay Gap Persists and Women’s Superannuation in Australia.

Signs of change

• More men are taking primary carer’s leave. Men made up 20% of employees taking primary carer’s or universal parental leave in 2024–25, after rises of 3 percentage points in each of the past two years.
• Parental Leave Pay now reserves more days for partners. The days set aside for a partner rose from 10 for children born from 1 July 2024 to 20 for children born from 1 July 2026.
• Time on leave now builds super. Parental Leave Pay carries a 12% super contribution for children born or adopted from 1 July 2025.

See Parental Leave in Australia and Child Care Subsidy Explained for how these schemes work.