The time married men spend on housework at the weekend increases to 2.2 hours. Women’s time on these activities is reduced to 4.9 hours over the weekend.The NSO commissioned a pilot study to analyse the way Maltese people spend their time, when and with whom.

Men have an average of half-an-hour more free time than women on weekdays, whereas at weekends, men have an extra hour of free time, compared to women, according to the statistics.

Men and women spend almost 37.1 per cent of their free time watching television on weekdays and 32 per cent at the weekend.

The NSO said women travel on foot 41.8 per cent of the time while men travel by car 53.4 per cent of the time.

Statistics showed that people spend an average of 11 hours on personal care – including sleeping – on weekdays and 11.7 hours on the same activities at weekends. People sleep between 8.6 and nine hours per day. On average, females sleep a little longer than males and at the weekend, people sleep about 18 minutes more than during the week.

On average, females spend 11.6 minutes more than men on washing and grooming. This applies especially in the early 20s age group, where women spend an average of 1.5 hours per day on bathing and grooming.

On average, people have 4.7 hours of free time on weekdays which goes up to 5.7 hours at the weekend. Housework and family care accounts for 3.3 hours on a weekday, a figure that is reduced to 2.8 hours over the weekend. Gainfully employed people work an average of 6.7 hours a day during the week compared to 2.2 hours a day at the weekend.