Indicator 5.4.1 Proportion of time spent on unpaid domestic and care work, by sex, age and location

United Kingdom

Percentage (%)

An activity is said to be productive or to fall within the “general production boundary” if it satisfies the third-person criterion (the activity can be delegated to another person and yield the same desired results). Productive activities can be further classified based on the ILO framework for work statistics (included in the 19th ICLS resolution) into - i) Own-use production work (activities to produce goods and services for own final use; the intended destination of the output is mainly for final use of the producer in the form of capital formation, or final consumption by household members or by family members living in other households; in the case of agricultural, fishing, hunting or gathering goods intended mainly for own consumption, a part or surplus may nevertheless be sold or bartered); ii) Employment (activities to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit); ii) Unpaid trainee work (any unpaid activity to produce goods or provide services for others, in order to acquire workplace experience or skills in a trade or profession); iv) Volunteer work (any unpaid, non-compulsory activity to produce goods or provide services for others); v) Other forms of work. The own-use production work can be differentiated based on whether goods or services are produced. Indicator 5.4.1 only considers the own-use production work of services, or in other words, the activities related to unpaid domestic services and unpaid caregiving services undertaken by households for their own use. These activities are listed in ICATUS 2016 under the major divisions “3. Unpaid domestic services for household and family members” and “4. Unpaid caregiving services for household and family members”. As much as possible, statistics compiled by UNSD are based on the International Classification of Activities for Time Use Statistics 2016 (ICATUS 2016), which classifies activities undertaken by persons during the survey period. ICATUS 2016 was adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission for use as an international statistical classification at its 48th session, 7-10 March 2017.

Data presented for this indicator are expressed as a proportion of time in a day. Weekly data is averaged over seven days of the week to obtain the daily average time. Proportion of time spent on unpaid domestic and care work is calculated by dividing the daily average number of hours spent on unpaid domestic and care work by 24 hours.

Data follows the UN specification for this indicator. This indicator has been identified in collaboration with topic experts.