Gender, time use, and food consumption in India

Abstract

To understand the intrahousehold distribution of calorie, we consider daily calorie consumption and daily calorie expenditure by an individual. This paper uses information obtained from a 24-h recall dietary survey and a time use survey, and a face-to-face questionnaire survey of poor urban individuals in India. We find gender discrimination in the intrahousehold allocation of food and distribution of work over a 24-h period. Combined domestic and market work of a sample wife is 2 h 22 min longer than her husband in a day. The results strongly suggest that wives are overburdened with unpaid household activities, and they are not getting their due share in consumption compared to their husbands. Chronic energy input deficiency is significantly 186.30 kcal points higher in wives than their husbands.

Keywords:

• Gender
• time use
• food
• intrahousehold allocation

JEL Classifications:

• D13
• R29
• O12

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Correction

Acknowledgments

This research study was one of the projects supported under the UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Center (APRC) capacity development project on gender and macroeconomic issues. The author is a fellow who completed the regional intensive course on gender and macroeconomic issues in 2011. The paper benefited from the comments from anonymous reviewer and Yumiko Yamamoto of the UNDP APRC. I would also like to thank Dr. Barnali Ray Basu of Surendranath College, Kolkata, India who helped me a lot in initializing this project.

Disclosure statement

The author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Notes

1 Defined in page 10.

2 Appendix Table A1 provides calorie intake conversion rates (ci) for the full range of food variety and thus helps us in getting a close estimate of calorie intake by an individual.

3 Given fund constraint, we could interview each of the 225 households thrice a week only. We have combined both weekdays and weekend data by questioning each once on the weekend and twice on weekdays to capture the differences in food consumption and time allocation patterns in the weekend and weekdays.

4 Energy requirement values are reported in Appendix Tables A5.1 and A5.2.

5 See Appendix Table A4.

Additional information

Funding

This research project received a small grant from the UNDP APRC through the Japan-UNDP Partnership Fund [No. 2011/82 (Procurement)]. Financial support from the Government of Japan is acknowledged.

Notes on contributors

Poulomi Roy

Poulomi Roy is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics of Jadavpur University in India. Her key specialization is in applied economics, development economics, gender, public economics, and health economics. She has published her research in reputed international and national journals. She has undertaken several research projects funded by international and national funding agencies.