Gendered division of paid, unpaid, and total work in India: who bears more burden?

ABSTRACT

This study examines the gendered division of paid, unpaid, and total work in contemporary India. We explore this division of work through an analysis of India’s first large-scale time use survey, conducted in 2019. Our findings reveal that the distribution of paid, unpaid, and total work is highly gender-biased. We also found that rural women bear relatively more burden of total work than urban women; whereas, urban men bear relatively more burden of total work than rural men. We observed striking gender differences in the paid, unpaid, and total work burden across the key household and individual-level characteristics of age, marital status, presence of children, income status and employment status. Compared to all other categories, married employed women belonging to the working age cohort (15–59) bear the highest burden of total work in India, and hence are left with the least available free time.

KEYWORDS:

• Time use
• gender
• unpaid work
• work burden
• free time
• time poverty

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgment

The author acknowledges comments and suggestions made to improve the article by the reviewers and the editor.

Notes

1 Activities under the production of goods for own final use don’t receive any direct remuneration from the market and are hence put under the domain of unpaid work, though quantified through imputed value (hence, put under the SNA production boundary). For further clarification on classification, kindly see NSO’s report on time use survey 2019 (page 58) and ILO (2018, 9).

2 This is mainly because unpaid work is indispensable for survival of household members and is, on the whole, considered to be women’s responsibility.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dakrushi Sahu

Dakrushi Sahu is a Ph.D. scholar at the Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He obtained his M.Phil. degree in Economics from the University of Hyderabad and a Master's degree in Applied Economics from Pondicherry Central University. His current research work addresses issues related to labour economics – especially the care economy – and poverty in the contemporary period. Two of his articles are forthcoming in The Indian Economic Journal, and Artha Vijnana: Journal of The Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics.