Gender inequality starts young: household-chores young.
Around the world, girls between the ages of five and 14 spend 550 million hours on household chores, 160 million more hours than boys in the same age group, according to a report from Unicef titled “Harnessing the Power of Data for Girls.” Girls aged five to nine spend an average of four hours a week on chores; that rises to nine hours per week for girls aged 10 to 14. In countries with higher expectations for girls to work, those numbers can be higher still. In Ethiopia, Somalia and Rwanda, for example, girls aged five to 14 spend two hours each day on work around the home.
According to Unicef, these early gender disparities plant the seeds of inequality, and ultimately influence how much women will work, and how little their effort is valued.