Japanese Women Outperform Men in Unpaid Housework by Over Half a Trillion Dollars

Japanese women are missing out on approximately 111 trillion ($761 billion) in pay for a variety of household duties they perform for free, an amount roughly equivalent to one-fifth of the economy as a whole.

According to research by the Cabinet Office, men put in 32 trillion less unpaid work around the home than women do. The sum of these figures exemplifies the magnitude of unpaid labour in the worlds third-largest economy and reflects the salary discrepancy between men and women.

The value of unpaid labour was determined in the report by multiplying the number of hours spent by the median wage for women and men in the same age range.

The amount of unpaid work highlights missed wages and the persistent gender gap as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pursues a more equitable distribution of incomes as part of his “new capitalism” policy goal. According to economists, the low pay for women in Japan is a major factor in the lack of wage increases during the past two decades.

Kanako Katsumata, a mother of two from Fujisawa City not far from Yokohama, is one of the many women who take on the lion’s share of household chores and childcare responsibilities.

Katsumata, a nursery school teacher who is presently on maternity leave, stated, “It’s kind of accepted as fact that women do the lion’s share of the housework.” After the birth of their second child, she saw her husband was more helpful around the house. However, she noted that the cultural expectation in Japan that women do the majority of the housework persisted.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that the average Japanese man spent only 41 minutes a day on unpaid labour, the least of any of the 30 countries studied by the organization.

Due to this low number, women labour an extra 3 hours per week without pay, making Japan the fourth country in the OECD with the greatest gender gap. The time difference between Sweden, Denmark, and Norway is less than an hour, making those countries the closest together.

However, all around the world, women do a disproportionate amount of unpaid work. Women in the United States forego $627 billion annually due to their unpaid caring responsibilities.

According to senior researcher at NLI Research Institute, Naoko Kuga, if the value of women’s unpaid labour were added to average income, the pay difference between the sexes would roughly disappear. That works out to about $2,000,000 per woman.

Looking at the statistics by age group, women’s potential income was higher than men’s during child-rearing generations aged 20 to 44 if unpaid labour was included. Since men continue to maintain a disproportionate share of the country’s managerial positions after age 45, their theoretical compensation remains higher than that of women in this age range.

Reiko Yamamoto is a dedicated physical therapist who also takes care of her four kids. Yamamoto, from nearby Yokohama in the Kanagawa prefecture, claims to have a satisfying life despite receiving a meagre salary. She claimed that even if she added the worth of her unpaid work to her earnings, she still wouldn’t be paid as much as her husband.

“In reality though, I’m working enough to justify being paid 30% more than my husband,” she said.

In recent decades, the number of Japanese homes with two working adults, rather than just one, has increased from 5.6 million to 12.6 million. However, women still put in around four times as many hours as men doing housework.