Men grab more 'me time'

Men find almost twice as much "me" time as women including more hours in front of the TV, more sleep and more nights out with friends, according to new research. Although the average man is at work for longer, he more than makes up for it by shirking housework and time with the children to put himself first, the study suggests.

The average British man has 41.5 hours a week of time to himself, nearly six hours a day, according to the survey of 2,500 for holiday and gifts website lastminute.com.

The average woman has 23 hours a week to herself, little more than three hours a day. Men spend more time in the office or at their job, averaging 45 hours a week compared with 21 hours a week for women.

But they still have more leisure time to go to the pub, the gym or even play on Playstations or other consoles.

Mothers spend 55.5 hours a week with the children on the school run, after-school activities, helping with homework and looking after them — compared with 14 hours for fathers. In a normal week, men spend 10 hours longer in bed than the average female. A woman's time is also taken up with an average of 15.5 hours on housework and food shopping. The one area where women get more time to themselves is for pampering, from beauty treatments to the hairdresser.

Lastminute.com's marketing director Mat Hart said: "Despite men working longer hours, they still manage to find time to escape by themselves. But their actions are affecting women. The idea of "me time" tends to be particularly important for women who still do the majority of child and home tasks, but time is something they haven't got.

"Maybe men need to live smarter by helping out with some family chores."