BY LAUREN C. HOWE, LINDSAY B. HOWE, AND ASHLEY V. WHILLANS
SOCIETY
WHEN STUDIES REVEALED THE SO-CALLED PINK TAX, showing in 2015 that personal hygiene products “for her” cost 13% more than similar products for men, it caused outrage and action. But there is also an unaddressed pink tax on women’s time: a global epidemic of women lacking time to conduct the activities of their everyday lives that men simply do not experience. In fact, men have on average five hours more leisure time per week than women—equivalent to 260 hours, or 10.8 full 24-hour days, each year.
Our own research found it’s true everywhere. After a conversation with a mother of three from an upper-middle-class neighborhood of Johannesburg, our colleague Margot Rubin asked, “So you’re saying that there’s nothing outside of money, or time, that will make anything better?” She paused and said, “Yes.” In interviews with working mothers in the crowded and poor Kibera settlement in Nairobi, one lamented, “I have so much to do at home and I still have to go to work.”
Why is there this time inequality? At home, childcare and chores devour women’s time. At work, women—even those who have the security of steady employment—face further unequal time demands.
Women are more often asked and expected to take on “office housework”: necessary but nonpromotable tasks such as taking notes, helping new hires get up to speed, bringing in cake for colleagues, or getting coffee for the office. With results that aligned with gender-based stereotypes, one study found that women volunteer up to 50% more than men for these tasks. Women also negotiate for time at a lower rate than men—in another study, men were more than twice as likely as women to request an extension when their deadline was adjustable—perpetuating this time-poverty trap further.
SO HOW CAN WE REPEAL the pink tax on time? Timesaving incentives are one solution: giving women money or vouchers to pay someone else to complete daily tasks that erode their free time—cooking, shopping, laundry, bringing children to school, household maintenance—or to shorten the time spent on tasks, like providing money to take a taxi instead of a bus. Services such as backup childcare or prepared takeaway meals can also reduce time burdens.
Given that
