![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788749304_79_25611a2557110140db195f09bab958d41123ba0d1fd3aea47f7432f64621ef20.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
September 7, 2026 \u2014 5:00am<\/p>\n
Save<\/p>\n
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n
Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Australians spend more time each year doing unpaid work such as cooking and cleaning, and caring for children, than the combined paid hours of work in every industry.<\/p>\n New analysis reveals about 31 billion hours of unpaid labour are performed annually, nine times more than in healthcare and social assistance, Australia\u2019s largest sector for paid hours. Australians do 14 times more unpaid work than in the construction sector, the country\u2019s second-largest industry for paid hours.<\/p>\n Women do 8.2 hours of unpaid work more than men each week \u2013 equivalent to more than a full-time work day \u2013 although the gender gap has closed a little over the past two decades.<\/p>\n Gianni La Cava, an economist at the e61 Institute who did the analysis<\/a>, said the huge scale of Australia\u2019s unpaid workload was not well understood despite the fundamental role it played in daily life.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralia\u2019s biggest industry has no payroll,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n La Cava estimates time spent on household production is 1.3 times more than the hours worked across every paid industry put together.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n A separate study by consulting firm Mandala<\/a>, commissioned by online delivery platform DoorDash, found Australian adults spent a similar amount of time each week on paid and unpaid work \u2013 both 26 hours on average.<\/p>\n Nearly three-quarters of unpaid work was spent doing domestic activities, especially meal preparation (25 per cent), housework (21 per cent) and shopping (8 per cent). Childcare accounted for 20 per cent of unpaid labour and adult care 4 per cent. Volunteering comprised about 3 per cent.<\/p>\n Mandala\u2019s report found long hours of unpaid household labour, particularly intensive care duties, are \u201cassociated with reduced mental wellbeing\u201d including depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n Research published recently<\/a> by Queensland University of Technology economist Dr Leonora Risse found the value of unpaid work in Australia was $688 billion, about one-third of gross domestic product, although other studies put the share above 50 per cent. These estimates vary depending on the assumed wages and the method used for the calculation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n She estimates Australian women do the equivalent of $40,092 in unpaid labour a year compared with $25,636 for men.<\/p>\n Risse says unpaid work is taken for granted.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is the invisible scaffolding that holds up the rest of the economy,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is underappreciated, under-recognised and undervalued.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures<\/a> show women did an average of 31 hours of unpaid work per week in 2024 while men did 22 hours a week, up from 19 hours in 2002.<\/p>\n The biggest gender discrepancy was in time spent doing housework, where women do 3.5 hours more each week than men on average.<\/p>\n La Cava said the time use data shows women in paid employment \u201cdo more unpaid work on average than men not in paid work\u201d.<\/p>\n Unpaid labour rises sharply when people have children.<\/p>\n La Cava found that in the year that a first child is born, mothers\u2019 unpaid work rises by about 53 hours a week and fathers\u2019 by about 15 hours. Mothers take on close to four-fifths of the additional workload. At the same time, mothers\u2019 paid work falls by about 18 hours a week, while fathers\u2019 paid work rises by about two hours.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cMost of the initial increase is childcare, but ordinary housework and errands also become less equal,\u201d the e61 Institute report said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the birth year, mothers add about nine hours a week of housework, errands and outdoor tasks; fathers add about one. Four years later, the gap in those tasks has widened to around 11 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n La Cava said simply counting hours missed a crucial aspect of unpaid labour, as women took on a disproportionate share of the \u201cmental load\u201d required to keep households running.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWho\u2019s doing the work of predicting when the kids need new school clothes and where they need to be on the weekend for sporting commitments? That stuff is often done by mothers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Editor’s pick La Cava believes gender differences in the way unpaid work is managed in households underscores the need for fathers to take parental leave after the birth of a child.<\/p>\n \u201cLeave does more than change who is at home because it affects who learns the routines, who becomes the childcare centre\u2019s first call, and who is expected to stay home when a child is sick,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd those roles are often established early.\u201d<\/p>\n Mandala managing partner Amit Singh said better, more frequent data on unpaid work was required for Australia to address inequalities.<\/p>\n \u201cTechnology has incredible potential to alleviate the pressure of unpaid labour, but it will only work if it\u2019s supported by government with actual visibility of the problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Australians](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ed8dcded083ff39afdac9bd78502d77f5b9954cc.jpeg\")
Australians spend more time on unpaid labour than on all paid work combined.Getty<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/27ebf250d31af01369ad0e199ad34da2c0f8dc0d.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/16c5f37dec917ad263efdf935dde994f9ead287d.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788749307_64_25611a2557110140db195f09bab958d41123ba0d1fd3aea47f7432f64621ef20.png\")
Matt Wade<\/a> is a senior economics writer at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"September 7, 2026 \u2014 5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-882774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}