Band 5+: The diagram below shows the average hours of unpaid work per week done by people in different categories. (Unpaid work refers to such activities as childcare in the home, housework and gardening.) Describe the information presented below, comparing results for men and women in the categories shown. Suggest reasons for what you see.

The chart graph averagely represents the number of unpaid work hours per week between married women and men.

In households where there are no children, women are managed to work approximately 30 hours, while men have only to work fewer than 20 hours, which is a third of that of women.

When children enter the household, however, the inequality becomes even more pronounced.

In families of 1 or 2 children, men maintain approximately the same number of unpaid work hours as in childless households, but the number of hours women work in the home rises even up to almost 50 hours per week, which is nearly twice of that before any children and, also three times that of men work. Interestingly, when 3 or more children are born, women are also with upward trend, leading with an approximate work hours of 60 per week, which is even more than all over the period. Whereas, men are found to work even fewer hours than before the appearance of the third child, representing that men’s work hours are nearly stable all the period.

The data of the chart graph suggests that the increased presence of children makes women work more and more than before but, as in men, it has led to maintain at a stable trend all over the period.