Busy doing nothing

It is not quite true that men take exercise by moving their legs while their wives hoover round them, but new evidence from the Office for National Statistics suggests there is some truth in the caricature. For one thing, women of childrearing age perform 91 per cent more unpaid work that men do. Men in general far outdo women in time spent on hobbies or sport. So while men are tinkering in the shed or casting a line, the figures tell us, women get in an hour or two’s extra time socialising. But though women average a doughty 16.4 hours a week watching television, men manage to spend even more time at the gogglebox. Only in the leisure pursuit of eating out do men and women score equally, devoting a couple of hours to it a week. Who knows – they might even be spending that time together.