Band 8+: You should spend 20 minutes on this task. The chart below shows the amount of leisure time enjoyed by men and women of different employment status. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. Write at least 150 words.

The bar chart compares how much time men and women spent on leisure activities each week during 1998–1999, depending on their employment status.

What jumps out is that people who were unemployed or retired had the most free time, no matter if they were men or women. On the other hand, those with full-time jobs had the least. One thing worth noting is that there’s no data for men working part-time or stay-at-home dads — maybe because there simply weren’t enough of them to be counted.

Zooming in on the full-time workers: men had around 45 hours of leisure per week, while women had slightly less — just under 40. For part-time employment, only women were included, and they had nearly 40 hours of free time too — which, interestingly, puts them on par with full-time working men.

The unemployed and retired groups had the most relaxed lives, with men enjoying slightly over 80 hours per week and women around 10 hours less. Housewives, the final category, had about 50 hours of leisure per week, which is somewhere in the middle but still higher than full-time workers.

Overall, men tended to have more free time than women across almost every category, especially when they weren’t working. The only exception might be in part-time work and housework, where women’s data stood alone.