Over the life course womens caring work seems always much more impressive than mens. If women were the real leaders of the worlds major institutions, we would all find ourselves in akinder gentler place`. (Real leaders are more than the ones we officially “elect”.)
The chart below shows how women beat men handily, when we compare their average daily devotion of time to unpaid helping, social support, and other caring activities.
The bottom two curves are about “parent care”. The curve for men has a downward incline from roughly age 25 to roughly age 45. In that age range the curve for women is sloped upwards.
After age 55, the curve for men has a distinctly more pronounced downward slope than that form women. In that same age range women’s time use in “husband caring” (red curve) is soaring much more impressively than that for men concerning “wife caring” (yellow curve).
For shame you men! (Or is this only in Canada?)
Notes:
- “Caring” has a special meaning here. It includes activities that are explicitly named “help for the spouse/parent doing X”, as well as other productive activities where the spouse/parent was present and which by virtue of their content are reasonably deemed to be activities that benefitted (at least partially) the spouse/parent. Think of these as unpaid work outputs that were at least partly on behalf of the spouse/ parent.
- This chart is for my seminar at the university on Friday. Except for the underlying microdata file records, everything in the chart is mine and it is "all green stuff". You will not find it published anywhere in the world.
Signed: Your Friendly Neighborhood Rogue Whale