Women are picking up the slack as men cut back working hours in U.K.

British men are working shorter hours than they did 25 years ago, but women are working more

Author of the article:

Bloomberg News

Philip Aldrick

Published Jan 25, 2024 • 2 minute read

British women have increased their working hours since 1998. Photo by Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

British men are working shorter hours on average than they did 25 years ago with women picking up the slack, new analysis from the Office for National Statistics reveals.

Since 1998, average weekly hours worked by men has fallen from 38.6 to 35.3 while women have increased their hours from 26.5 to 27.9. A third of the increase in female hours came after the pandemic, a trend that was “perhaps an indication of greater flexibility in working arrangements,” the ONS said.

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Overall, average weekly hours for all those in employment in the U.K. dropped from 33.1 in 1998 to 31.8 in 2022. The decline was driven by men in full-time jobs working less and women and older workers accounting for a larger share of today’s labour force.

Although men in full-time jobs still work longer hours than women on average, the gap is closing. In 2022, full-time male staff worked on average 1.2 hours less per week than in 1998 and 0.5 hours less than 2019. Women working full-time reduced their average weekly hours fell by just 0.1 between 1998 and 2022, all of which came after 2019.

Overall, Britons are working on 0.3 fewer hours a week than before the pandemic. The drop helps explain the staff shortages that have hammered employers and driven up pay.

The post-COVID-19 reduction in hours is equivalent to roughly 310,000 fewer people in employment, the ONS said. “This drop in average weekly hours is significant in terms of its quantitative impact on labour supply.”

It also comes on top of a decline in total workers over the pandemic. Official data shows there were 25,000 fewer people in work the three months to November 2023 than in the three months to February 2020, just before COVID hit.

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The employment data may not be reliable, however, as response rates to the ONS’s key Labour Force Survey have collapsed. It is using experimental data until the problem is fixed.

Bloomberg.com

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