Work Rich, Time Poor? Time-Use of Women and Men in Ireland

TIME-USE OF WOMEN AND MEN IN IRELAND

Table 4: Time-Use in Ireland Compared to Selected European Countries, Men
Aged 20-74 Years: Average Day (Combining Weekend and Weekday
Information)

Source: Irish National Time-Use Survey for Ireland; Eurostat 2004, Table 1.2 for other
countries.

Note: *Irish estimates of time-use generated using the priorities described above, with
caring and domestic work given priority. Appendix A presents alternative estimates of
time-use for Ireland.

**Free time includes active and passive leisure, voluntary and religious activity and
unspecified time-use.

From Table 4 we see that, at least in terms of free time, Irish men are not
time poor relative to the other countries shown. At 6 hours per average day,
their free time is slightly higher than that for other countries, though their
sleep time and personal care is lower. They also record the lowest levels of
unpaid work (caring and domestic work), despite the fact that caring and
domestic work is given priority in these estimates. However, the average time
they spend on paid work is higher than in other countries, even Britain, which
gives a total committed time, defined as a combination of paid and unpaid
work and travel, of just over 8 hours per day. Committed time for Irish men is
higher than for Hungarian, French and German men, but about the same as
for British men and lower than for Swedish men.¹⁴

Irish women’s free time, at 5 hours 17 minutes, while significantly less
than that of Irish men, is high compared to other European women, second
only to German women in the countries presented. However, unpaid work time
for Irish women is substantially higher than other countries. This is partly a
function of the care priority implicit in these estimates: if we give caring a

¹⁴ Committed time for Irish men is lower when we use ‘split’ time slots described in Appendix A.

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