Indians and Ukrainians spend the maximum time in the kitchen, South Koreans cook the least and Italians are most passionate about food. These are the findings of a new global report from German-based market research firm Gfk.
As per the study quoted by NY Daily News, Indians spend over 13 hours a week cooking. South Koreans and Brazilians invest the least time in culinary activities. The global cooking average is just under 6.5 hours a week. For the study, over 27,000 people aged 15 and above were interviewed across 22 countries.
As reported in Hindustan Times, the study also makes an interesting revelation that globally 34 percent of women in comparison to 25 percent of men had knowledge of food and cooking.
In fact, the study says women spend over seven and a half hours per week cooking while men spend just five hours a week. This is particularly true for India where most household and child-rearing responsibilities are handled by women.
A significant amount of women’s time is mostly spent on unpaid labour. In India, women’s contribution to household maintenance, provisioning and reproduction is often ignored. As per a 2011 OECD working paper authored by Veerlee Miranda, Indian women spend 4.3-5 hours per day more on unpaid work than men. The paper also states “Indian men spend considerably more time sleeping, eating, talking to friends, watching TV and relaxing.” Yet, much of women’s work remain invisible.
To sum up, as economists CP Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh argue, “undervaluing women’s work also undervalues women in society, so there are important reasons for domestic work at least to be recognised as socially necessary and important activity in our labour force surveys.”
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