The Leisure Gap
This is Part 1 of a two-part series on the leisure gap: what it is, why it exists, and how it shapes our financial lives. Next time, we’ll dig into what sits underneath the numbers and how to start making changes.
🔍 What the Data Tells Us**
Researchers who track how people actually spend their days (through the American Time Use Survey) keep finding the same thing:
Women have less free time than men across almost every age group, family structure, and job situation.
One big analysis found:
Women have about 13% less free time overall.
Between ages 35–44, that gap widens to 23% less basically a month less “vacation” each year than men working full-time.
You read that correctly ONE MONTH LESS.
And this isn’t about being more efficient or “getting better at time management.”
It’s really about how paid work and unpaid work get divided and who steps in when something needs doing.
So if you’ve ever wondered why you feel behind even when you’re trying your best?
The numbers suggest: it’s not just you.
💡 How This Connects to Money
Leisure isn’t laziness, it’s capacity.
With real downtime, it’s easier to:
think through choices,
advocate for raises,
plan instead of react, and
make intentional financial moves.
Without it, we default to “whatever’s fastest,” and those small compromises add up.
Less rest → fewer options → slower financial growth.
When you’re exhausted, you’re more likely to take the job that simply fits, skip the negotiation, or delay the conversations that could change things. Over time, those choices compound.
Time inequality becomes money inequality.
✨ What’s Next
In Part 2, we’ll dig into:
why even women who earn more still do more at home,
how unpaid work shapes careers and earning potential, and
what this means for long-term financial security (and what can help).
For now, I’m curious:
When you think about your week, where does real leisure show up and what tends to crowd it out?
Email hello@financesforfeminists.com and let me know.
📚 Sources
**An important note**
A lot of this research focuses on heterosexual households and uses binary gender categories. That means it doesn’t capture every partnership or identity but it still reveals powerful patterns about how time and labor are valued.
