According to the National Bureau of Statistics' Nigeria Time Use Survey 2024, women in Nigeria spend 21% of their day, or nearly five hours, on unpaid domestic and care duties, compared to men who spend only 4.1%, or about an hour.

The poll is Nigeria's first standalone nationwide effort to quantify how people distribute their time between paid labour, unpaid care, personal pursuits, and leisure.

It demonstrates a significant and persistent gender imbalance in home responsibilities in both urban and rural locations.

On average, Nigerians aged 15 and up spend about 12.5 percent of their day, or three hours, doing unpaid domestic and care work.

However, women bear a disproportionately heavy burden.

In rural areas, women dedicate 24.1 percent of their day, or nearly six hours, to unpaid care and domestic activities, compared to 3.7% for rural men.

In metropolitan areas, women devote 19.8% of their time to such activities, while males devote 4.3%.

According to the NBS, women spend 15.1% of their day on unpaid domestic services and 5.9% on unpaid care services, which is much higher than men's spending of 2.9% and 1.2%, respectively.

Across the surveyed states, women work five times as many hours as men on unpaid domestic and care jobs.

Men, on the other hand, lead in System of National Accounts (SNA) productive activities, spending an average of 372.6 minutes each day vs women's 234 minutes.

Women, however, devote significantly more time to non-SNA activities.

According to the Bureau, the findings highlight deeply ingrained gender roles and call for targeted investments in care infrastructure as well as changes aimed at redistributing unpaid work, which are consistent with Nigeria's commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality.