The hidden cost of Nigerian women’s unpaid labour is reflected in the hours millions of women spend cooking, cleaning, raising children and caring for relatives without financial compensation. For Fadekemi, that responsibility began when she was just six years old, learning to prepare stew under her mother’s strict instructions to make it the way her father liked it.
Fifty-one years and thousands of pots of stew later, Fadekemi still questions whether domestic work was all she was expected to do. Her experience reflects a wider reality in Nigeria, where women shoulder much of the responsibility for keeping households running, often at the expense of their own time, economic opportunities and personal ambitions.
Research suggests that Nigerian women’s unpaid care and domestic work has an annual economic value of up to $111 billion. Yet the contribution remains largely absent from conventional measures of economic activity, despite the essential role it plays in sustaining families and enabling other people to work.
The scale of the imbalance is evident in the Nigeria Time Use Survey (NTUS) 2024 report. According to figures reported by Nigerian media, women spend an average of 21 per cent of their day on unpaid domestic and care work, equivalent to roughly five hours. Men, by comparison, spend about one hour on these responsibilities.
For a woman who has already completed an eight-hour working day, another five hours of cooking, cleaning, childcare and other household duties can amount to a second shift. For women who work from home, run small businesses or engage in informal employment, the demands may be just as heavy, leaving limited time to develop their careers, pursue education or rest.
This work is often described as invisible labour because it is essential to daily life but rarely recognised as an economic contribution. A meal must be prepared, children must be cared for and elderly relatives may need assistance, regardless of whether anyone receives a salary for performing those tasks.
The imbalance can begin in childhood. Girls are often expected to help with household chores, look after younger siblings and take on responsibilities that extend well beyond their years. By adolescence, some are already spending substantial portions of their time on unpaid domestic work. These contributions help households function, but they are rarely acknowledged as work that carries an economic cost.
Fadekemi’s experience illustrates how the responsibility can follow women through every stage of life. What began with cooking as a child continued into her teenage years, when she cared for her siblings. Motherhood brought another set of responsibilities, and now, as a grandmother, she continues to care for her grandchildren.
Cultural expectations can reinforce this pattern. Omugwo, a traditional Igbo postnatal care practice in which a mother or another close female relative helps care for a woman and her newborn, is one example of how family support is often organised around women’s labour. Although such traditions can provide valuable assistance to new mothers, they also reflect a broader expectation that women will take primary responsibility for care.
The consequences extend beyond individual households. When women spend hours performing unpaid work, they have less time available for paid employment, professional development and business activities. The economy also loses potential workers, entrepreneurs and sources of income when care responsibilities prevent women from participating fully in the labour market.
The question, therefore, is not simply how much unpaid work women perform, but how families, employers and government institutions can distribute that responsibility more fairly.
Evidence on newborn care highlights the challenge. A study published in BMC Pediatrics in 2026 reportedly found that more than 64 per cent of women identified themselves as their newborns’ primary caregivers. The finding points to the central role women continue to play in early childcare, although the specific circumstances of individual families can vary.
Traditional gender expectations are only part of the explanation. Workplace policies and the availability of parental leave also influence how care is shared between mothers and fathers.
In Nigeria, maternity and paternity leave arrangements differ by employment sector and workplace. Under the federal civil service framework described in reports on the issue, mothers are entitled to maternity leave with half pay, while fathers in the civil service are entitled to 14 days of paternity leave. Private-sector arrangements can vary, leaving many fathers without equivalent statutory access to paid paternity leave.
These differences matter because the first weeks after a child’s birth can establish patterns of responsibility that continue for years. When a mother is expected to manage most of the care while her partner returns to work, the family can become accustomed to treating childcare as primarily her responsibility. Limited leave for fathers can make it harder for them to participate from the beginning.
A more balanced approach would recognise that raising children is a shared responsibility, not an obligation that automatically falls on mothers. Access to parental leave, affordable childcare and workplace arrangements that allow both parents to participate in family life could help reduce the pressure on women while giving fathers more opportunities to take an active role in caring for their children.
Nigeria’s proposed National Care Policy seeks to address the wider problem by recognising care work as an essential part of the economy and setting out ways to make care more accessible and fairly distributed. The policy’s central argument is that investment in care should not be viewed solely as social spending. It can also support employment, business activity and national productivity.
Affordable childcare, for example, could enable more mothers to return to paid work, pursue training or expand their businesses. It could also create jobs for people employed in childcare and other care services. When care responsibilities are better supported, families have more options, and employers gain access to workers who might otherwise be unable to take up employment.
Figures cited in Nigerian media suggest that improvements in childcare and care provision could enable an additional 1.7 million mothers to enter the workforce and contribute as much as $111 billion to the economy. The scale of these projected benefits makes the economic case for care reform significant, although the figures should be understood as estimates rather than guaranteed outcomes.
Recognising unpaid care work does not mean every family task must become a paid service. It means acknowledging the time, effort and economic value involved, while ensuring that responsibility does not fall disproportionately on one group. Better public services, affordable childcare, fairer leave arrangements and a more equal division of domestic duties could help achieve that goal.
For women like Fadekemi, the issue is also deeply personal. Decades of cooking, raising children and caring for grandchildren represent a lifetime of work, even if none of it appears on a payslip. Her experience raises a difficult question about what society expects women to give up in order to keep families functioning.
The economic cost is not borne by women alone. Families lose income and opportunities when care duties limit women’s choices, while businesses and the wider economy lose access to their skills and labour. Recognising and sharing this work is therefore not simply a matter of fairness within the home. It is also part of creating an economy in which more people can contribute.
Nigeria’s proposed National Care Policy offers an opportunity for the public to influence how that responsibility is recognised and supported. Those interested in contributing to the draft can find further information and provide input through nigeriacarepolicy.org.
