# Method and source

## How Helpore calculated the totals

The population is women and men with children whose youngest child is under 15. Everyone in both groups works 90 to 100%.

The figures come from the unpaid work module of the Swiss Labour Force Survey (SLFS). The survey data are from 2024. The survey asks each person how long they spent on each task on one reference day. The Federal Statistical Office publishes the results as average hours a week. It published this dataset on 4 June 2025. This is Helpore's analysis of published data, not a new survey.

Helpore added up the published averages for meal preparation, cleaning and tidying, and laundry and ironing, for mothers and for fathers.

The survey questionnaire does not show whether time spent on two tasks at once is counted once or twice. So the hours are reported time, not measured clock time.

The source publishes averages without a margin of error. So this analysis cannot say whether a difference is statistically significant. It does not explain why the difference exists. It covers Switzerland as a whole, not cantons. It puts no money value on the work, and it does not show what paid help at home would change.

## Three tasks from the survey

The survey asks about each task separately. Helpore added up the hours for these three. They are only part of household work.

* Cooking (meal preparation)
* Cleaning (cleaning and tidying)
* Laundry (laundry and ironing)

Childcare, dishwashing, shopping, administration and other household and family work are not included.

Totals and differences were calculated before rounding to one decimal, so the rows may not add up exactly to the total.

## Sources and files

* [View the official dataset on opendata.swiss](https://opendata.swiss/de/dataset/zeitaufwand-fur-haus-und-familienarbeit-nach-der-erwerbssituation-in-stunden-pro-woche-haushalt)
* [The same dataset on the Federal Statistical Office website](https://www.bfs.admin.ch/asset/de/35927457)
* [Raw source data from the Federal Statistical Office](https://disseminate.stats.swiss/rest/data/CH1.SAKE_MOD_UA,DF_SAKE_MOD_UA_3_WITHCHILD,1.0.0/2024.HFA.POP_GE15.2050.Y0T14.._T.111.?dimensionAtObservation=AllDimensions)

## Reproduce the totals

The extract is not included in these files. Download it from the raw source data link above with the request header `Accept: application/vnd.sdmx.data+csv;version=2.0;labels=both`. Save it unchanged as `raw/bfs-fulltime-parents-2024.csv` in the folder that holds `reproduce.py`. Then run `python3 reproduce.py`. If the file is missing, the script stops and prints the link and the header. If the file differs from the extract this study used, the script stops. It compares the rows in any order (rows sha256 `2a986a220a875ba2ebfd1d5be66360cbea3606a6fa29fef69eefd5b830d2614d`; the file this study used had sha256 `f095eac3320390b8e46fc9d11b6ac7ccb2f8920739b2fa8c888e15d26c3aa05b`).