Policy Briefs

Women’s Unpaid Care Work in Egypt: Gender Gaps in Time Use

No.

PB 150

Publisher

ERF

Date

January, 2025

In a nutshell:
  • A new time-use module in ELMPS 2023 provides the opportunity to examine women’s time spent on unpaid care work and employment-related activities, relative to men.
  • A total of 84% of Egyptian women aged 15-64 participated in unpaid care work daily, compared with only 34% of men.
  • Women of working age (15-64) allocated an average of 5.4 hours per day to unpaid care work, more than five times the amount of time spent by men on similar tasks.
  • Marriage and childbearing lead to an increase in the time women spend on unpaid care work, with married women spending six times as much time in unpaid care work as married men.
  • Employed women faced a double burden of having to balance their unpaid care work and employment commitments, with married women who were wage employed being the most time-constrained.
  • Deeply entrenched social expectations prevent more equal redistribution of unpaid care work, despite shifts in personal beliefs on gender norms.
Women’s Unpaid Care Work in Egypt: Gender Gaps in Time Use

Authors

Marian Atallah

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Economics and Political...

Women’s Unpaid Care Work in Egypt: Gender Gaps in Time Use

Authors

Marina Hesham

Assistant Lecturer of Economics, Faculty of Economics...