Girls may want to have fun, but according to data, they have less fun than men — and that’s not changing. According to data from Pew Research, married women spend less time on leisure activities each week than men do, and this statistic hasn’t changed in decades.
The results are the same in marriages where the wife brings home equal earnings or is the primary breadwinner. This disparity reflects enduring societal expectations surrounding how men and women should use their time.
Men and Women Use Their Time Differently
Leisure time includes hours spent on activities like relaxing, watching TV, and playing sports between men and women. The Pew Research study analyzed this gap in opposite-sex, married couples between the ages of 25 and 64 who both work outside the home.
Today, around 29% of marriages are egalitarian, according to another study from Pew. Egalitarian marriages refer to partnerships in which both spouses earn about the same amount of money, and the number has roughly tripled over the last 50 years. Although women contribute more financially to their households than ever before, there are notable differences in the ways men and women spend their time.
Even in marriages where men and women are equal earners, men spend more time on paid work and leisure activities. In contrast, women carry more of the load regarding caregiving and household chores. In these equal-earning marriages, men spend an average of 4.4 more hours each week on activities like watching TV, relaxing, or exercising than their wives.
The leisure gap is even wider in marriages where the wife is the primary breadwinner. In these marriages, men devote 8.8 more hours to leisure activities per week than their wives, while wives still bear the brunt of the caregiving and household chores. Breadwinner wives spend 3.4 more hours on caretaking and housework than their husbands despite spending more hours on paid work each week than their spouses.
Societal Beliefs Drive Time Use Disparities
More than half of adults in the United States believe that society values men’s paid work more than their work at home. However, only 20% think women’s contributions at work are more valued than at home.
Most U.S. adults agree that children fare best when their parents divide their focus equally between their jobs and homes. However, while Americans may claim they value men’s and women’s work and home contributions equally, the persistent gap in how parents use their time doesn’t reflect this belief. Women still devote more time to housework each week than men in every working arrangement, including when the husband does no paid work, leaving the wife as the sole breadwinner.
About one in five Americans still believe that children are better off when their fathers focus more on their jobs and their mothers focus on childrearing and the home. This number was higher among men, 23% of whom believe this. In contrast, almost no one (2%) stated that children fared best when their fathers focused on the home and their mothers concentrated on their jobs.
The Leisure Gap Is Wider Among Parents
The leisure gap is narrowest among couples without a child under 18 living at home—just 1.6 hours. However, parents experience more disparity. The gap is widest in couples whose children are younger than 5. On average, mothers of young children have just 20 hours of leisure time per week—4.5 fewer hours than fathers of children the same age. The gap narrows but doesn’t close as the children in the household age.
The average difference in leisure time between fathers and mothers with children of all ages is 2.9 hours. Interestingly, a similar study in 2013 yielded the same results- a 3-hour gap in leisure time between working fathers and working mothers. The study indicated that this leisure gap had been consistent for at least the previous decade. After 20 years or more of persistence, it’s unlikely that the leisure gap will disappear soon.
The Future of the Leisure Gap
Despite societal progress towards more egalitarian partnerships and changing roles within the household, the leisure gap between men and women remains firmly in place.
Though women contribute more and more to the household economy, men consistently enjoy more leisure time. This ongoing disparity reflects deeply ingrained societal expectations about gender roles and challenges the notion of gender equality in modern relationships. As long as these discrepancies persist, achieving true equality in how men and women spend their leisure time will remain a distant goal.
