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Two quick things. This doesn't quite match what I get in ATUS; I get 333 minutes men, 291 women.
But more to the point, this is the wrong way to measure leisure time. It's literally being measured here as "minutes people say they spend on leisure." https://twitter.com/EOrtizOspina/status/1336311909222674432
But more to the point, this is the wrong way to measure leisure time. It's literally being measured here as "minutes people say they spend on leisure." https://twitter.com/EOrtizOspina/status/1336311909222674432
Which seems intuitive! But what we actually mean by leisure time is "time not spent at work, commuting, doing chores, or sleeping." There may be sex differences in how that residual time gets identified.
So, for example, ATUS shows that the gap is mostly made up for not in work/chores, but in "personal care," where women spend 582 minutes vs. men 556. Some of that is women sleep more minutes per day, some is more time spent in other categories, like what ATUS labels "grooming."
So, if you take the sum of market labor time, care of household and nonhousehold people, sleep, and chores, you get 893 minutes/day of sleep+labor for men, and 895 minutes/day of sleep+labor for women.
However, many of us would consider sleep a form of leisure. If you remove sleep, it's 375 "work minutes" for men vs. 369 for women.
If you add in education and phone calls/emails not categorized as work, it's 411 for men, 410 for women.
If you add in education and phone calls/emails not categorized as work, it's 411 for men, 410 for women.
Look, point blank, the way these categories are coded, "watching a football game on TV" is categorized as "leisure" while "meditating" or "a friend braiding your hair" would count as "personal care," not leisure.
The key thing to understand here is that there is structural sexism in how these activities are coded. Things men do are "leisure." Things women do are "personal care." cc @EOrtizOspina
Using the OECD's actual data I can't really duplicate a more correct measure. The OECD treats all "shopping" as unpaid labor similar to e.g. childcare, which in fact some shopping is leisure. Several other tricky codes. Point is, OECD's "leisure" is not a meaningful code.
Here's the OECD data focusing on "work" instead of leisure, and including only codes we can be pretty much sure truly does not contain actual leisure activities. The gender gap vanishes! Men do more work! cc @EOrtizOspina
Even if I include shopping and volunteering men still do more work by that definition. I just prefer to exclude it because it's not correct to include it.
Anyways, the key point here is that men report more time spent on "leisure activities"....
.... and also they spend more total time on paid work + housework + childcare than women do.
Which suggests that the other categories get crunched.
.... and also they spend more total time on paid work + housework + childcare than women do.
Which suggests that the other categories get crunched.
But since the other categories are things people derive happiness from like "sleep" and "going to church" and "taking a shower" and "taking a long poop while you read the newspaper," I don't think it's reasonable to just compare official "leisure."
Here's the gender gap in paid and unpaid hours worked in the OECD data by country. What you'll notice is men have more minutes of labor in most countries. The exceptions are interesting too!
Where do women really have a "second shift"?
Japan, Denmark, Australia, and Ireland.
Japan, Denmark, Australia, and Ireland.
Honestly this rank ordering has so little correlation with any measure of gender attitudes I'm aware of that I'm kind of mesmerized by it.
