Mexico’s 2024 National Time Use Survey

INEGI’s survey makes unpaid labor and care visible as a gendered distribution of time, not an absence of work. Unpaid labor is not absent; it is often absent from what counts as work. Mexico’s 2024 National Time Use Survey results place housework, care and employment within one account of time. INEGI published the report on August 28, 2025, distinct from the survey year.

How was time recorded?

The survey covers people aged 12 and over and asks about a preceding reference week through predefined activities, rather than minute-by-minute diaries. Weekly hours cannot simply be placed beside another country’s daily averages. The instrument maps a division of work rather than reconstructing every individual day exactly.

Combining paid and unpaid work tests the claim that a person without earnings does not work. Participation rates and average duration among participants answer different questions: many people may occasionally perform a task, while fewer carry it for much longer. One indicator alone can hide the distribution.

Care does not occupy only separate blocks

Supervising a child or dependent relative can overlap cooking or rest. Passive care and simultaneous activities therefore require care in interpretation. Mechanically adding every column can produce a misleading total; responsibility and availability can restrict mobility or employment without continuous hands-on activity.

Differences by age, ethnicity and urban or rural location challenge a single image of women’s time. The survey describes distributions; it cannot by itself explain them as preferences or natural choices.

The Mexican unpaid household work satellite account converts time into economic valuation, allowing a comparison between value and burden. Argentina’s 2021 time-use survey offers a methodological comparison. Cross-national claims about who works more should begin with compatible definitions and denominators.

Original title: Encuesta Nacional sobre Uso del Tiempo (ENUT) 2024: Reporte de resultados.