Women and girls represent half of the world's population, according to the United Nations, and, as a result, half of its potential. However, gender inequality has long been concerning in all countries. Now, an anthropological study of gender division of labour across different societies has revealed that women work harder than men. The results of the study, published in the magazine Current Biology, show that males under duolocality and patrilocality work much less hard than females.
"Dispersing at marriage generates a disadvantage in bargaining over workload," the study said. Describing the terms, it said that "dispersed" describes a situation where women leave their original country. The men, on the other hand, stay with their families, a tradition that is described as "patrilocality" in the research.
The study involves an analysis of farming and herding groups in the Tibetan borderlands of rural China - an area with huge cultural diversity - to uncover which factors actually determine who works the hardest in a household and why.
The study said that women walked on average just over 12,000 steps per day, while men walked just over 9,000 steps. So men also worked hard, but less so than women.
"This may be partially attributed to the fact that women tend to be physically weaker than men, which may lower their ability to bargain."
When both sexes disperse and no one lives with their natal families, both sexes work hard, but the women still works harder.
According to the study, perfect sex equality in workload only occurs in instances where men disperse and women do not.
