The amount of time parents spent caring for children has fallen since the year 2000, with grandparents and siblings stepping in to offer unpaid help, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.
New data for unpaid work shows the average amount of time parents devote each day to childcare fell by 5.7%, from an average of 1 hour and 33 minutes per parent in 2000 to 1 hour and 27 minutes in 2015. Over the same period, the average amount of care provided by people over 60 and siblings increased.
ONS analysis also showed that women spend 60% more time cooking, childcare and doing housework than men, recording 26 hours a week in unpaid work of this sort compared with 16. The statisticians said women on maternity leave were doing the most unpaid work, recording 60 hours a week.
The only area where men did more unpaid work hours than women was in the provision of transport, which included driving themselves and others around as well as commuting.
Highlighting the squeeze on people in their middle age who may have elderly parents to look after as well as grandchildren, the amount of time those aged over 50 spend looking after adults has risen markedly. In 2015, men over 50 spent 15% more time giving unpaid care to adults than in 2000, while women spent 21% more time.
The ONS said that mothers provided 74% of childcare in 2015. It estimated the total value of childcare was £132.4bn, while adult care was worth just under £8bn.
Fathers with children of pre-school age had increased their share of childcare, spending 90.7 minutes a day on all kinds of care from feeding to reading, compared with 86.7 minutes in 2000.
Among over-60s, females saw the amount of childcare they provided grow by 22.4%, to an average of 9.9 minutes a day. The amount of care they gave at weekends fell, but was offset by a rise in the provision of weekend childcare by men aged 60 and over.
“This may represent a shift in behaviour, where older males are now helping out more with childcare (likely for grandchildren) particularly on weekends,” the ONS said.
Women on maternity leave typically spent up 37 hours a week in active engagement with their child or children, eight hours of cooking, seven hours doing housework, two hours doing laundry and six hours transporting themselves or others around.
The ONS has a calculator to allow people to work out how much the unpaid work they do is worth.
