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Girls, Asians, wealthier kids and only children do more homework.

Girls, Asians, wealthy and only children do more homework than their 10-13-year-old peers, a new study suggests.

“Gender, ethnic background, household size and household wealth all affect how much time tweens spend doing homework,” says Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan Research.

This comes at a time when 10-13-year-olds are doing more homework than ever before.

Tween girls do almost an hour’s homework more than boys each week, the study found.

How to nail homework when you don’t have a clue. (Post continues after video).

Girls rack up four hours and 25 minutes a week on homework, while boys study for three hours and 35 minutes.

Australia’s Asians in the same age group hit the books for over six hours a week — about two hours more than average.

Whereas children with an English-speaking background from New Zealand, UK, Ireland, USA or Canada spend around half an hour less on homework every week.

David Eng, 33, says the Asian studying stereotype may be “somewhat true”.

The bilingual Sydneysider was raised in a traditional Asian family, and spoke Teochew (a Chinese dialect) at home.

“I think I studied more than some of my peers, but there were a lot of my peers who studied way more than I did. People from my school were predominantly from a South East Asian background,” he said.

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His family, who migrated to Australia from Cambodia, paid for tuition classes.

“My parents sent me to private tutorials but I didn’t like the learning environment. It was stale and didn’t relate to me. I then went to classes with other kids, but felt that it was a waste of time because lot of the other kids didn’t take the classes seriously. It was a distraction so I stopped going.”

Despite quitting private tuition, David went on to score 91.85 in his HSC and was the first in his family to graduate from university.

“I studied diligently and tried to efficiently allocate my study time on subjects which I thought I could excel in. I tried to make sure that I focused on the subjects which I knew I could get good marks in,” he said.

 

Image source: Roy Morgan Young Australians Survey, January-December 2015, sample n = 1,628 Australians aged 10-13   

Growing up in Sydney might have also helped David's homework practices, according to the study.

Tweens in capital cities spend around an hour and a half more on homework each week compared with those in country areas and if both parents work full time, it helps increase study time.

"Perhaps contrary to what one might assume, those with both parents working full-time actually do around 20 minutes a week more homework than average," says Ms Levine.

Family size was also a factor, with homework time decreasing by half an hour for each sibling.

Money matters too. Tweens in homes earning over $200,000 spend an extra hour on homework than families with lower incomes.