Unpaid work including caring

Time

Unpaid work including caring

Measuring unpaid work helps to value everyone’s contributions to their community and the economy.

People performing unpaid work, including caring

This measure shows satisfaction with the amount of time people spend performing unpaid work – compared to their desired time – in areas such as housework, caring for others, and volunteering.

Satisfaction with the amount of time spent on unpaid work is one factor that contributes to a person’s overall quality of time use, together with other factors such as ability to spend time with family and friends, doing paid work, and engaging in recreational and creative activities.

Other factors also affect whether we feel we have a good quality of time use, such as how meaningful we find the ways we are spending our time, and whether we feel we are achieving our desired goals through the ways we are using our time.

The University of Canberra’s 2024 Living Well in the ACT Region survey showed that almost half (46.8%) of Canberrans reported spending about as much time as desired doing housework and chores (excluding gardening), whereas 37.5% said they spend more time than desired.

In terms of Canberrans’ caring duties, similar proportions are happy with the amount of time they spend caring for children (52.3% of those who are caring for children), and on other unpaid caring duties such as caring for a person with an illness, disability, or old age related frailty (48.0%).

However, differences appear amongst those who feel they spend more time than desired, with 30.5% of unpaid carers spending more time than desired in unpaid caring for others, compared to 17.7% of those who are caring for children. 30.0% of Canberrans would like to spend more time caring for children, compared to 21.5% of those with other caring duties.

In 2024, 38.3% reported spending less time than desired doing volunteer work and helping out local groups, compared to 46.7% in 2022. Only 8.2% reported spending more time than desired volunteering (7.6% in 2022).

Unsurprisingly, gender plays a significant role in spending more time than desired doing household and caring related unpaid work:

Data for this indicator are sourced from the University of Canberra Living Well in the ACT Region survey. Detailed survey data, survey user guide and published reports from the survey can be accessed at https://www.regionalwellbeing.org.au/living-well-in-the-act-region/.

Line graph of percentage of respondents’ feelings about time spent on paid work in the ACT, between 2019 and 2024.

In 2024:

  • 37.5% of Canberrans reported spending more time than desired on housework, compared to 30.4% in 2022
  • 30.5% spent more time than desired on unpaid caring for others (29.0% in 2022)
  • 8.2% spent more time than desired volunteering (7.6% in 2022)
  • 17.7% spent more time than desired caring for children (17.1% in 2022).

The Living Well in the ACT Region survey, conducted by the University of Canberra, aims to measure, track and understand the wellbeing and resilience of adult residents living in the Australian Capital Territory region of Australia. It examines factors known to affect wellbeing and resilience at the individual, household, community and regional level.

When generating data for the ACT, statistical weighting is used to address differences between the sample of people who respond to the survey, and the characteristics of the ACT adult population.

Data are produced from this survey for different groups of people in the ACT. The ‘overall response’ category represents responses at the ACT population level. Where reliable estimates can be produced, data are also presented for Canberrans by: gender, age, cultural background, gender identity and sexuality, carer role and experience of disability. Not all differences over time or between groups are statistically significant: information on confidence intervals for the data presented here is available in data tables that can be accessed at https://www.regionalwellbeing.org.au/living-well-in-the-act-region/.

Care is needed when interpreting the differences in findings between groups as the descriptive statistics published here show where there are differences in wellbeing, but not what has caused those differences in wellbeing.

Further information about the survey can be found at Living Well in the ACT Region or by contacting regionalwellbeing@canberra.edu.au.