Who works harder?

Do women put in more work hours than men? It is one of the most commonplace arguments, conducted in kitchens and sitting rooms throughout the land. Until now there have been two answers—men did more paid work and women more unpaid work—and because the latter was unquantified, there was no way of comparing the two workloads.

The lack of hard data has not stopped many people from stressing the “double shift” that many women do: full-time or part-time paid work followed by countless hours of unpaid work in households (childcare, domestic work, family work) as well as countless hours of…