Mexican men work hard, but Mexican women work harder -- and Mexican women are more likely to go unrewarded for labor, says a new report.

More than half of weekly work hours go toward unpaid labor in Mexico. Moreover, women tend to work 20 percent more hours and three times as many domestic hours, while men work twice as many paid hours.

The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) assessed a sample of 19,000 homes, learning that the entire Mexican population over the age of 12 works (paid or unpaid) almost 6 billion hours a week.

The National Institute for Women (INMUJERES) worked in partnership with INEGI to create the survey, which established that 55.4 percent of every 10 hours worked in Mexico is spent on unpaid labor in the home. This contributes to Mexico's identity as "hard-worker, low-earning" economy. Nearly 42 percent of total work hours go to compensated labor; while a mere 2.7 percent goes to the unpaid production of goods within the home, or self-sustainable work.

Although women work 20 percent more hours than men, men happen to work twice the number of paid hours. Salaried work favors men, demonstrated by the fact that 27.4 percent of men work in paid positions, compared to just 14.8 percent of women. However, when it comes to non-salaried work, 42.5 percent of women perform these activities, compared to 12.8 percent of men.

Women work three times the hours men work on domestic tasks, which includes cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, childcare, caregiving, shopping and paying for services outside of the home. When caregiving is specifically concerned, women spend an average of 28.8 hours a week providing care to individuals over 60, the sick or the disabled, while men spend 12.4 hours.

When looking at the indigenous population, the report shared that 60 percent of hours goes to self-employment. Just 32.8 percent of hours go toward the general job market, and 8.7 percent goes to the home. However, 58.6 percent of labor is unpaid work among the indigenous-speaking population. Of the same group, women contribute around 60 percent of hours worked. Nearly half of their hours goes to self-employed work, 8.1 percent is work for the market place and 4.8 percent is exclusively self-sustainable work. Additionally, 24.7 percent of men hold a salaried position; 11.6 percent are self-employed, and 3.9 percent work for home.

Conclusively, the report established that women work more hours each week, are rewarded less, and spend a great deal of their unpaid hours acting as caregivers for the elderly, ill and disabled. Also, numbers slightly differed depending on whether men or women were from urban, rural and indigenous areas. The report also investigated how time was split between eating, studying, working, relaxing and other activities, as well as occupational and socio-demographic characteristics of household member.

Researchers believe that understanding the contributions of men and women will be useful when creating policies targeting equality and justice.

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