Please Santa… - CareforKids.com.au®

Please Santa…
All I want for Christmas is…some time!

TIME is the top of our Christmas list this year. Somehow we simply never seem to have enough of it, and sadly the older we get, the more we need. Know what we mean?

And it's not just us. Apparently, as reported in The Sun Herald, according to Race against time - How Australians spend their time, a report just published by AMP and the National Centre for Social and Economic Modeling, we are all feeling the time pinch. And women more than men.

The report has found balancing work and family remains a big issue for Australians with about 40 per cent of women and 30 per cent of men saying they feel they are often or always rushed and pressed for time.

The report reveals that Australian women are spending on average two hours more each day than men on housework (and the rest!), child care and purchasing goods and services while men spend almost the equivalent extra time on employment-related activities as well as an extra half hour per day on recreational and leisure pursuits.

With many already time-squeezed, women are less satisfied than men with their partners' contribution towards child care and housework, with 25 per cent not so satisfied with their partner's commitment of time towards child care (compared to 15 per cent for men).

The report found Australian full-time weekly work hours have increased by almost three hours for men and two hours for women since 1985. Average weekly full-time hours have risen from 39.5 hours to 42.3 hours for men and 36.4 hours to 38.6 hours for women (= 3.7 hours less a week than men – approx. 31 minutes a day).

A third of men and women in double income households with children feel that child care is shared fairly between them.

However, a third of women believe they do more than their fair share of looking after the children, despite their partners claiming to contribute fairly.

Time pressure is felt especially by young mothers with children, with more than 60 per cent feeling they contribute more than their fair share to household tasks. This compares with 50 per cent of working women without children.

We Are A Nation Of Chore Bores!
According to the report findings women are generally spending around double the time on the daily list of chores than their menfolk.

We are becoming Chore Bores. Women are apparently even less happy with the help they get with household tasks - with 11 per cent 'actively dissatisfied'. Do you fall into that category? We do.

In contrast, only 4 per cent of men are dissatisfied with their partners' efforts around the home. Funny that!

Each day, on average:

Women spend 59 minutes on child care, compared to 22 minutes for men;
Women spend 2 hours, 52 minutes on domestic activities and men spend one 1 hour, 37 minutes;
Women spend 58 minutes purchasing goods and services while men spend 38 minutes.

In our speedy calculation then we reckon that women spend 2 hours 12 mins more than men a day on chores and domestic duties. Therefore, taking away the working hours, women are effectively getting 101 minutes less relaxation/sleep time than men per day.

So Santa, what we'd like for Christmas this year is an extra, say 1.5 to 2 hours a day (preferably when everyone's asleep) so we can read a book or watch some mindless TV AND preferably get in 8 hours beauty sleep. After all the CareforKids team have been very good this year.

*Note: When measuring averages for time spent on an activity, all minutes stated are averaged over the seven days of the week and the whole specified population group, which includes men and women at all ages, job statuses and those with and without children.