The Atlantic

Why Teen Boys Have More Leisure Time Than Teen Girls

Mothers tend to spend more time with daughters cooking and cleaning, while fathers tend to spend more time with sons relaxing.
Source: Bettmann / Getty

On average, American men have more leisure time each day than American women—the difference works out to about half an hour.

This inequity, according to a recent analysis of government data by the Pew Research Center, starts early. Among teens ages 15 to 17, the analysis found, boys had roughly an hour more of free time each day than girls.

The time-use patterns of more TV than women. Meanwhile, the time that teen girls spend each day cleaning and cooking is more than double the time boys spend on those tasks, and that . The teenage years, from this vantage point, begin to look like practice for an adulthood of gender inequities.

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