UK unpaid work equivalent to £1tn p.a.
The unpaid work carried out in the UK has been estimated to be worth £1tn a year, or 56% of the country’s GDP, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).  Women performed double the amount of unpaid work in relation to childcare, cooking and housework. The only sector in which men performed more unpaid work was the provision of transport. Alongside the data, the ONS has launched an “unpaid work calculator”. Using 2016 earnings data, the calculator estimates that an average man’s unpaid work is worth £166.63 per week. For women, the figure is £259.63 per week. 

The total value of all the unpaid work done by the UK population, mostly by women – from cooking meals and cleaning the house to childcare, DIY and gardening – has been officially valued at £1tn a year by the country’s top statisticians.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS), which published the figures, found that women put in more than double the proportion of unpaid work when it comes to cooking, childcare and housework but men can claim bragging rights when it comes to ferrying family members and others around.

To coincide with the new data, the ONS has launched an “unpaid work calculator” that will allow people to work out the value of all the unpaid work they do, which may help to settle once and for all some of those arguments about who does the lion’s share of the chores, and who is getting off lightly.



The calculator uses 2016 data on earnings to estimate how much an individual could earn for doing these tasks – if they could only find someone to pay them.



The department said its figures showed that unpaid work had a total value of £1.01tn in 2014, which was equivalent to approximately 56% of the UK’s gross domestic product (GDP).



The ONS said women carry out an overall average of 60% more unpaid work than men. On average, men do 16 hours a week of cooking, childcare, adult care, and housework, which includes laundry and cleaning. But for women the figure is 26 hours.



“The only area where men put in more unpaid work hours than women is in the provision of transport - this includes driving themselves and others around, as well as commuting to work,” said a spokesman.



Women do more unpaid work than men in every age group, from the 25-and-under age category to the 56-and-over category.



The average man would earn £166.63 more per week if his unpaid work was remunerated, whereas the average woman would earn £259.63.



“So not only do women do an average of 60% more unpaid work in terms of hours, they also tend to do the work that has a higher value,” said the ONS.



According to the calculator, one hour of housework (which also includes DIY and gardening) a week is “worth” £8.58 per week or £446 a year. One hour of childcare a week is valued at £15.28 a week or £795 a year. For cooking meals, it’s £7.63 or £397, while for transport – such as driving children to their clubs and commuting to work – it’s £11.24 or £584.



Overall, 36- to 45-year-olds carried out the most unpaid work, putting in 27.4 mean hours per week of unpaid work, followed by 26- to 35-year-olds.



The figures also revealed that people on lower incomes tended to carry out on average more unpaid work than other income brackets, with some exceptions, such as transport.

