With a special focus on unpaid care and domestic work, the results of a new report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) have emphasised the need for targeted investments in care infrastructure, gender equality reforms, and policies that recognise and redistribute unpaid work.

The report, ‘The Nigeria Time Use Survey (NTUS) 2024’, said the integration of time-use statistics into Nigeria’s regular statistical reporting would enhance the country’s ability to monitor progress on inclusive development and gender equality.

The Time Use Survey 2024 offers a disaggregated portrait of how individuals allocate their time in the four studied states, with a special focus on unpaid care and domestic work.

Findings from the survey indicated that, on average, people aged 15 years and above spent 12.5 per cent of their day (three hours) on unpaid domestic and care work in 2024.

Disaggregated by sex, it said women dedicated 21.0 per cent of their day (five hours) to unpaid domestic and care work, while men spent 4.1 per cent of their day (roughly one hour).

The NBS in the report stated that the survey marked a significant milestone as the country’s first stand-alone effort to systematically measure how individuals allocate their time across paid and unpaid work, personal care, and leisure activities.

It said the exercise provides robust empirical evidence to inform gender-sensitive policy design, development planning and the implementation of global and national commitments, particularly to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5.4.1 on unpaid care and domestic work.

The bureau said the International Classification of Time Use Statistics (ICATUS) 2016 was followed to make the time use statistics comparable and standard.

It stated that the NTUS employed a three-stage stratified sampling design, covering a total of 3,600 households and yielding data from 6,431 individuals aged 15 years and above.

According to the NBS, data was collected through a face-to-face personal interview using Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) devices.

The survey revealed that 28.1 per cent of participating households were located in rural areas, while 71.9 per cent were in urban areas.

Across the studied states, the household headship breakdown showed that 81.9 per cent of households were headed by males, while 18.1 per cent were headed by females.

Furthermore, among households headed by females, 81.0 per cent were situated in urban areas, while 19.0 per cent were in rural areas.

Similarly, it stated that for households headed by males, 69.9 per cent live in urban areas and 30.1 per cent live in rural areas.

The survey found that gender disparity is pronounced across both urban and rural areas.

It said rural women spent a higher proportion of time (24.1 per cent – almost six hours) on unpaid domestic and care work, compared to rural men (3.7 per cent – less than an hour).

Similarly, it stated that urban women spent more time (19.8 per cent, or almost five hours) than urban men (4.3 per cent, or one hour).

The differences, the report said, highlighted deeply rooted gender roles and unequal distribution of unpaid work within households, which showed that women consistently spent more time on unpaid domestic and care work than men among the studied states.

The result further revealed that women spent 5.9 per cent of their day compared to 1.2 per cent by men in unpaid care services.

Also, in unpaid domestic work, women spent a higher time, 15.1 per cent, compared to men with 2.9 per cent.

In all, it stated that women spent five times the hours that men spent on unpaid domestic and care work in the four surveyed states.
It added that the pattern was held across urban and rural locations and across wealth quintiles.