Gender Conundrum and Unpaid Work in India: Empirical Evidence from India’s First Large-scale Time Use Survey

Abstract

The study was aimed at (a) exploring the anomalies in conceptualising and measuring work, especially that of the women, (b) analysing the patterns of unpaid work distribution between men and women, and (c) examining the drivers of time spent on unpaid work in India. It has been argued that the under-conceptualisation of work and the methodological constraints led to invisibilising several activities, mostly performed by girls and women, in the prevailing labour force statistics and national income accountings. We have noted that such anomalies could be overcome with the advancement of robust statistical tools like that of time use survey. By employing the first and the most recent pan time use survey, conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization across the country in 2019, we have assessed the gender patterns of unpaid work and its determinants. We found the existence of a stark gender gap both in terms of participation and average time spent on unpaid work across rural and urban regions. Again, the findings, obtained through the Tobit regression model, reveal that the nature of the association and the extent of time allocated to unpaid work vary substantially across the demographic and socio-economic characteristics. JEL Codes: J22, J21, J40, J46, C10