Bar chart-Household Work

Vocabulary

What do the words in bold below mean? Take some notes on a piece of paper to aid your memory:

The bar chart details hours of housework completed in the UK from 1985 to 2005 by fully employed males and females with various states of employment. Looking from an overall perspective, it is readily apparent that time spent on housework rose for all groups with the exception of unemployed women, which was stable overall. However, the latter category undertook by far the most housework, while men with full-time jobs did comparatively little.

Unemployed women led throughout the period in terms of hours, at a peak of 7 hours in 1985 and 2005 and a slight dip to 6.5 hours in between. In contrast, men with full-time work were unchanged at just 1 hour in 1985 and 1995, though there was a slight rise to 1.5 hours in 2005.

Women with part-time employment were slightly lower than their unemployed counterparts throughout the period, beginning at 5.3 hours in 1985, before declining to 5 hours over the next 5 years, and then finishing the period with a surge to 6 hours. The figures for women with full-time employment resembled those of men, though they were marginally higher at 2, 1.5, and 2.8 hours in 1985, 1995, and 2005, respectively.