Recent statistics on unremunerated work in Switzerland show a slight shift towards a more equal spit of domestic chores, however men still lag substantially behind women in three areas.

In 2016, 7.1 billion hours were invested in unpaid domestic work, a little less than the 7.9 billion hours dedicated to paid work.

In 2010, an average Swiss resident invested 18 hours a week in unpaid domestic chores, women 24 hours and men 13 hours, an 11 hour difference. Six years later in 2016, the overall figure was 19 hours a week, with women averaging 24 hours and men 14, a difference of 10 hours, one hour less than in 2010.

Across the board women invested more time in domestic chores with the exception of heavy manual work and administration, areas where men put in 0.6 and 0.3 hours more than women.

On average women spent 7.2 hours a week in the kitchen. Men on average spent 3.6 hours, exactly half that time. Next was cleaning. Women dedicated 4.6 hours a week to this in 2016. Men by contrast managed 1.9 hours, 40% of the time women invested in this work. The most unevenly distributed task was laundry. Women spent 2.3 hours on this compared to 0.6 hours for men, 27% of the time. The time differences across these three tasks accounted for 81% of the difference between the total time men and women devoted to domestic tasks.

A fourth area where women outworked men was cleaning and feeding small children. This consumed 1.4 hours of an average woman’s week compared to 0.6 hours of an average man’s, 45% of the time.

The Swiss Federal Statistical Office put a notional value of CHF 408 billion on unpaid work done in 2016.

And while women did 61.3% of the unpaid toil, men did 61.6% of the total remunerated work.

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Federal Statistical Office report (in French) - Take a 5 minute French test now

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