Women and moms do a lot of unpaid labor. This is no shocker. But Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee decided to calculate what this actually means in dollar signs.
Gbowee won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 after helping end her country’s civil war. Her work led to the election of the first female president on the African continent, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. So, you know, she’s experienced with women having to fight for their rights.
This is why, at a Gates Foundation event in New York a few months ago, Gbowee made a point to talk about the unpaid work women do (aka: housework, childcare) — and used a man in the audience as an example when she asked him to write down all of the chores his wife does.
What was the outcome? Gbowee said, “He calculated it and [multiplied] it by 30 or 31 days, and by the time he looked at the figure, the wife made more than him.”
As Quartz points out, this means women work “four hours more a day per woman compared to men.” They also found that U.S. married women spend about two hours of housework versus one hour by married men — which translates to $20 a day or $7,300 a year. You can buy a lot of things with an extra $7,000 a year. Think about that.
You can even calculate all the unpaid labor you do, thanks to this calculator created by Task Rabbit.
