Independent work: choice, necessity, and the gig economy

Responses from MGI Survey
Multiplying the base amount of household work that could be outsourced by the share of people 
willing to outsource in each income bracket yields total demand for paid household work 
Demand per person, total hours per year
1
2
6
1
2
8
3
15
8
14
10
Driving children
Interior
housecleaning
Garden/lawn care
Driving self
(to work, to buy
goods/services,
for leisure)
Errands
Home repairs
Pet care
Grocery
shopping
Exterior
housecleaning
Laundry
Food
preparation
Very high
>$150
(n = 120)
High
$75–$150
(n = 478)
Average
$25–$75
(n = 738)
Low
<$25
(n = 375)
Income bracket
$ 
thousand
Total
NOTE: Numbers may not sum due to rounding. 
1
1
4
1
1
4
2
6
7
7
7
0
0
2
0
1
3
1
3
3
5
4
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
70
42
21
0

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118
McKinsey Global Institute
Appendix: Technical notes 
4.  Total hours worked was converted to FTEs and economic value
In order to convert the number of hours worked to jobs, we used the assumption that 
one full-time-equivalent worker works 2,080 hours per year. The resulting number 
indicates roughly what the equivalent number of full-time positions would be if the unpaid 
household work calculated above were converted to paid work. It is highly probable that, 
in fact, more workers would be involved in satisfying this demand as many of these roles 
are fulfilled by supplemental or part-time workers.
Overall, there was some variation in the results by country. Exhibit A13 below shows 
what the hours spent per day per person looked like across our survey countries for 
key activities; it does not include our estimates on likelihood from the survey data or 
income bands. The data indicated that households in Sweden spend less time per day 
on unpaid household work that could be converted to paid work while households in 
Germany spent more time, specifically on shopping and housework. 
Lastly, economic value was calculated by assuming an average hourly wage of $7.25 per 
hour and applying that to the overall hours worked. In Exhibit A14 below, we demonstrate 
how this calculation worked in the United States, where the 6.5 billion hours of unpaid 
household work each year that could become paid independent work represent 
$45 billion in potential economic value. 
Exhibit A13
SOURCE: OECD time use data; American Time Use Survey; McKinsey Global Institute analysis
Calculating demand for additional paid household work across the United States and