Across the globe, young girls spend a whopping 40 percent more time on household chores daily than boys. A new report from UNICEF has revealed that daughters ages 5 to 14 spend 160 million more hours a day on unpaid household tasks, such as cooking, cleaning, caring for family members and collecting water and firewood.

“The overburden of unpaid household work begins in early childhood and intensifies as girls reach adolescence,” UNICEF’s Principal Gender Advisor Anju Malhotra said in a press release. “As a result, girls sacrifice important opportunities to learn, grow, and just enjoy their childhood. This unequal distribution of labor among children also perpetuates gender stereotypes and the double-burden on women and girls across generations.”


UNICEF found that girls as young as 5 are often made to start working around the house. At this early age, they’re already spending 30 percent more time than boys their age on chores. By the time children reach the age of 14, girls are responsible for more than 50 percent of household labor.

How are these tasks divided around the world? Two-thirds of girls worldwide help with cooking and cleaning, fifty percent help with shopping, and water or firewood is hauled by 46 percent. Additionally, about 43 percent of girls around the world are responsible for caring for other children.

The report also found that girls between 10 and 14 years old spend nearly double the amount of time on household chores in South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa.

“Quantifying the challenges girls face is the first critical step towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality and breaking down barriers that confront the world’s 1.1 billion girls,” said UNICEF Chief of Data and Analytics Attila Hancioglu, in the news release.

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