People spend much less time on caring for elderly persons and looking after disabled relatives than on caring for and educating children or cooking and doing household work. In the EU-27 employed women spend 11 hours and employed men 8 hours weekly on caring for elderly and disabled relatives. But they spend 28 or 18 hours on caring for and educating children and 16 or 8 hours on cooking and housework. Care for elderly persons is carried out primarily by women but the gender gap is smaller than

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... for the other two domestic activities (Table). Elderly care involvement increases with age, mostly in terms of the frequency of care. Women aged 50-64 years show a slightly higher frequency of time spent on caring for elderly relatives than younger women. Men also show a higher frequency although the absolute frequency is about half of that of women (Figure). Women in southern European countries allocate more time to caring for elderly relatives than women in other parts of Europe. This higher demand for elderly care is reflected by the higher presence in the household of persons aged 70 years and over. This outcome seems to be due to the fact, that life expectancy levels are higher than in the new EU member states and that the provision of care services is worse than in the Nordic countries and the continental western European countries.