Dinner can arrive on the table while much of the work behind it remains unmentioned. Someone noticed what had run out, decided what could be cooked, organised the shopping and fitted the preparation around everything else happening in the household. The visible meal is only one part of the task.
An October discussion of Nigerian women’s unpaid labour has brought that familiar imbalance back into focus. A BellaNaija essay published on 23 October asks what care work costs the people who perform it. With the International Day of Care and Support falling on 29 October, there is a timely reason to look beyond individual stories and examine what the available evidence actually measures.
The most useful Nigerian evidence comes with an important boundary. The Nigeria Time Use Survey 2024 provides detailed findings for four selected states. Its results should not be casually converted into a claim about every Nigerian woman, every marriage or the country as a whole.
Five hours and one hour—within the survey’s scope
According to the National Bureau of Statistics’ study documentation, the survey covered Borno, Cross River, Kaduna and Lagos, using a sample of 3,600 households and collecting information from 6,431 people aged 15 and older. Its sampling design was intended to produce estimates for those selected states across dry and wet seasons.
Women in the study spent an average of 21% of the day on unpaid domestic and care work, roughly five hours. Men spent 4.1%, roughly one hour. The documentation also reports a larger unpaid-work burden for women in both rural and urban settings.
These are averages, not a timetable assigned to every respondent. They do not tell us that each woman performed exactly five hours or that each man performed exactly one. They do show a substantial imbalance in the population studied, making household time a serious subject for discussion rather than a matter of who complains most loudly.
An additional caution concerns the word “unpaid”. It describes the absence of direct payment for the activity. It does not mean the activity lacks value, requires no skill or can be removed without consequences for someone else.
The question is who can count on their time
The International Labour Organization’s October 2024 estimates provide a wider context. Using 2023 data, the ILO estimated that 708 million women and 40 million men worldwide were outside the labour force because of care responsibilities. Those are global historical estimates, not a Nigerian count or a new 2026 measurement.
They help explain why a conversation about chores can also be a conversation about opportunity. A course may be available, but attending it requires predictable hours. A work shift may be offered, but taking it requires someone else to provide care. A person can possess the skill for a job while lacking a workable arrangement for everything that must happen at home.
This is especially clear when considering interrupted time. An hour that can be used continuously is different from an hour in which someone must remain available for repeated requests. Both may appear empty on a family calendar. Only one may be practical for an interview, concentrated study or a deadline.
The survey cannot describe every such experience. It does, however, give families and policymakers a reason to ask better questions about the ordinary arrangements that shape who gets uninterrupted time.
Try describing responsibility from beginning to end
A household discussion can start with one recurring task instead of a sweeping argument about who does more. Take laundry as an illustrative example. The complete responsibility may include noticing that uniforms are needed, checking washing supplies, sorting clothes, washing, drying, putting them away and ensuring the right items are ready for the next day.
If one person handles only the washing while another organises everything around it, the task is shared but its management may remain concentrated. Neither person needs to be accused of bad intentions for that distinction to matter. Naming the stages makes it possible to decide what a fairer arrangement would involve.
The same exercise works for meals, school preparation or helping an older relative attend appointments. Write down the actual sequence in the household concerned. Decide who owns each complete responsibility, what information they need and how the arrangement will work when the usual person is unavailable.
This is not a proposed scoring system for affection. Families are not businesses, and care is not less loving because it takes time. The point is to stop love from becoming an assumption that one person will always absorb whatever has been left unplanned.
Share the planning as well as the activity
An arrangement that relies on one adult constantly instructing another can leave the first person with much of the organising work. A more useful agreement identifies an outcome: the child has what they need for school; the household has a workable meal; the appointment arrangements are complete.
The adult accepting that responsibility can then take charge of the ordinary decisions within it. Agreeing on a reasonable standard beforehand helps. Otherwise, one person may quietly redo the task while the other concludes that contributing is pointless.
For households with different paid-work schedules, equality need not mean doing an identical list each day. It can mean reviewing the combined demands on each person, protecting meaningful time for rest and making arrangements that can adapt when work or care needs change. The useful test is whether the agreement works in practice and whether both people can explain it without guessing.
Children can also learn that household contribution is a shared responsibility through suitable tasks. That lesson should not require an older daughter to become the permanent organiser of younger siblings. Adults remain responsible for making the household’s care arrangements function.
A fair household still needs functioning services
Private agreements have limits. Families cannot negotiate a nearby childcare place into existence or solve every transport problem through goodwill. The ILO’s 2025 discussion of decent work and the care economy links effective care systems with public services, social protection and decent conditions for the people employed to provide care.
That last point belongs in the conversation. Paying someone to take on domestic or care work changes who performs it; it does not make the labour disappear. A household seeking relief should still recognise the worker’s time, responsibilities and need for reasonable conditions. Otherwise, an unequal burden can simply move from one woman to another.
For employers, the practical question is whether working arrangements are compatible with employees’ real responsibilities. For service providers, it is whether opening hours, location and access make help usable. For government, time-use evidence can identify where investment is needed, provided its geographic scope and method remain visible.
UN Women’s 2026 guidance on comparing time-use surveys stresses the importance of survey design and consistent measurement. Better data matters because progress needs to be measured against a credible starting point, not inferred from a few supportive statements.
At home, the starting point can be smaller. Choose one responsibility that repeatedly creates friction. Describe the whole job, agree who will own it and revisit the arrangement after trying it. The four-state findings give weight to the conversation. The household’s own experience supplies the details required to change it.
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