Men take more leisure time than women in the UK, a study of the nation’s work-life balance has shown.
Men spend six hours and nine minutes a day on leisure pursuits, compared with five hours and 29 minutes for women, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has found.
The gender gap is greatest in north-west England, where men spent an average 36.2 hours a week engaged in leisure activities, seven hours more than women. The smallest gap was in Northern Ireland where the time spent was identical for men and women.
When not in leisure, women were more likely than men to be performing unpaid work, the study showed. Unpaid work for the purposes of the study was anything households perform for themselves such as childcare, adult care, volunteering, cooking, cleaning, DIY, gardening, transporting themselves or others, or ironing and washing clothes.
For men, the days with the highest average time spent performing unpaid work were Mondays and Saturdays, where men carried out an average 131 minutes of unpaid work per day. The day women spent the highest amount of time on unpaid work was Monday with 207 minutes per day, the ONS said.
Women spent more socialising than men – four hours and 19 minutes, compared with three hours and two minutes per week respectively.
The majority of leisure time for both sexes was spent consuming mass media, the ONS said, such as watching TV, reading, or listening to music. Men gave 16 hours and 24 minutes per week on mean average to this activity, while women dedicated 14 hours and 23 minutes.
The analysis, for 2015, focused on people aged over eight, drawing on data from the UK harmonised European time use survey.
The figures also show that, on average, 16 to 24-year-olds enjoy the same amount of leisure time as people aged 55-64 - six hours per week.
For people aged 65 and over, the amount increases to seven hours and 10 minutes a week.
The least leisure time was taken by 25 to 34-year-olds – four hours and 46 minutes per week.
In terms of regional differences, people in south-east England spent the most time on leisure activities – five hours and two minutes per week. By contrast, people in Northern Ireland spent the least – four hours and 22 minutes per week.
Based on a median household income, individuals from lower-income households take less leisure time on weekends, the study revealed.
The largest difference between those from higher- and lower-income households was on Saturdays where 33.1% of those from lower income households took less than 40% of the median leisure time, as opposed to 24.3% of those from higher income households. The median leisure time taken on Saturdays was 7 hours and 12 minutes.
This could be explained because those from lower- income households are more likely to be working at weekends, the ONS found.
People who worked in skilled-trade professions spent the least time on leisure - four hours and 34 minutes per day - compared with people in sales and customer services professions who spent the most at five hours and 21 minutes per day.