The chart shows the division of household tasks by gender in Great Britain.
Write a report for a university lecture describing the information shown below.
You should write at least 150 words. You can spend 20 minutes on this task.

Source: Office for National Statistics on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

Model Answer

The chart given above shows the average number of minutes per day British men and women spend in doing domestic tasks. In short, women spend about four hours in doing household tasks while men spend less than two and half hours.

The tasks that are more likely to be done by women than men include cooking, cleaning, washing and child care. While women spend 74 minutes in doing tasks like cooking, baking and washing up, men spend just 30 minutes. Women are also far more active than men when it comes to doing tasks like cleaning and house tidying (58 minutes per day for women as opposed to just 13 minutes for men). The areas where men are more active than women are gardening, pet care and odd maintenance jobs around the house. On an average, men spend 49.5 minutes per day in gardening and pet care whereas women spend 21 minutes on these tasks.

Women spend twice as much time as men on childcare. They also account for nearly all the time spend on tasks like washing, ironing and sewing (25 minutes for women as opposed to just 2 minutes for men).

Overall, the chart shows that routine domestic chores are mainly done by women, while men prefer doing tasks like household maintenance, gardening and pet care.