Swiss couples with children: men do twice as much paid work as women
Men still do most of the paid work in households with children, while women are catching up only slowly, a study has found.
Women in households with children do paid work for an average of 17.9 hours per week, compared to 39.8 hours for men, according to a study by the BSS consultancy group on behalf of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).
Compared to previous decades, however, women’s paid workloads have increased: in 2004 they worked 13.5 hours per week, while in 1997 the figure was 8.6 hours.
+ Read more: women in Switzerland do more unpaid work than men
The proportion of hours worked by men in each of these years was still over 40 hours per week and has therefore since decreased slightly.
Overall, couples with children are spending more and more time at work – three more hours per week compared to 2004.
The SECO study analysed, among other things, working hours in couple households between 1997 and 2020. The results were published in February 2024.
Translated from German by DeepL/dos
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