Unfolding unpaid domestic work in India: women\u2019s constraints, choices, and career

The United Nations collects data at gigabyte scale from the member countries for sustainable development goals, and recognizes the impact big data collection has on opportunities and risks for sustainable development. The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) open data hub provided a dataset that details the "proportion of time spent on unpaid domestic chores and care work" world wide. This primary dataset is only a portion of the data available related to the research area. This data contains many related variables, such as the population's age, sex, and location metrics. In an effort to better understand the impact of unpaid domestic work, the dataset was analyzed in conjunction with another dataset from the UN Statistics Division that details the rate of divorce/separation in the world population. Our analysis included methods such as principal component analysis, the k-means clustering algorithm, the random forest clustering algorithm, and implementing a neural network. The principal components were clustered using the k-means algorithm to cluster the variables in a manner that explains the variance present in the dataset. The analysis found that age, sex, and location demographics are key variables that explain the diverse variation between countries and the percentage of time spent on unpaid domestic work.Machine learning algorithms enabled the confirmation of this relationship. Using the key variables identified, a random forest of decision trees and a neural network were generated to classify the percentage of time spent on unpaid domestic work. Similarly, the random forest algorithm and a neural network were also implemented to classify geographical regions. These models were compared to determine the strength of the relationship between age, sex, location metrics, the percentage of time spent, and geographical regions.The analysis detailed in this work strives to identify the social factors that classify the percentage of time spent on unpaid domestic work in accordance with the UN SDG 5.4, which is to "recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure, and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate."

Women and men at work

MotivationThe study is motivated by the persistent low participation in the labour force of women in India, largely attributed to the burden of unpaid domestic and caregiving work. There is a notable lack of empirical studies on this issue due to the previous absence of comprehensive time‐use data. This research aims to fill this gap by exploring the impact of unpaid care work using the latest Indian time‐use data.PurposeThis is an empirical study that investigates the influence of unpaid domestic and caregiving work on the labour‐force participation and employment choices of women in India. Additionally, the study explores the extent of time poverty among working women and identifies its causes.Methods and approachThe study has utilized Time Use in India data 2019. To examine the impact of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics as well as unpaid domestic and caregiving work on labour‐force participation and nature of employment of women, the study has employed logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression, respectively.FindingsThe findings revealed that the time devoted to unpaid domestic and caregiving work reduces the probability of women participating in the labour market. An increase in time invested in unpaid domestic and caregiving work raises the likelihood of women opting for self‐employment. In addition, women workers in India experience higher levels of time poverty than their male counterparts, and this gender disparity in time poverty persists across all employment categories.Policy ImplicationsTo include women in the labour market, it is imperative to recognize, reduce, and redistribute women's unpaid domestic and caregiving work and invest in care‐friendly policies at workplaces to reduce time poverty among women workers.

Using data from Rapid Gender Assessment Surveys investigating the socioeconomic consequences of COVID-19 on women’s and men’s lives, this study assesses whether the pandemic threatens fragile gains on gender equality in paid and unpaid work. Evidence from eleven countries in Asia-Pacific indicates that the impact of the pandemic goes far beyond health consequences. With children out of school, intensified care needs of elderly and ill family members, and labor markets in turmoil, demands for unpaid domestic and care work have increased substantially. Results show that women are disproportionately shouldering the burden of unpaid care and domestic work triggered by the lockdowns, and they are losing their livelihoods faster than men. Worsening mental health also emerges as a critical area affecting women disproportionately. These findings inform emergency responses for a gender-sensitive recovery, and underscore the need to take radical, positive actions to redress long-standing inequalities in multiple areas of women’s lives. HIGHLIGHTS UN Women’s Rapid Gender Assessments (RGAs) gave early insights into COVID-19 impacts. Asia-Pacific RGAs show that the crisis had dramatic socioeconomic impacts on women. Women are more likely to experience loss in paid work hours than men. Women and men are doing more unpaid domestic and care work, but women take on the larger share. The emotional and mental health impact of the pandemic is disproportionately falling on women. More gender-responsive surveys and quality administrative sources are needed.

The present World Survey on the Role of Women in Development has contained an examination of the important links between gender equality, income poverty and time poverty. The responsibility for unpaid care and domestic work, which falls disproportionately on the shoulders of women and girls, sustains people and households on a day-to-day basis and across generations. Unpaid care work is the foundation upon which all other economic activities rest. Rooted in discriminatory social norms and gender stereotypes, women’s disproportionate responsibility for unpaid care and domestic work has significant consequences for both women and their families and is deeply connected to the high rate of poverty among women. The intersection of income poverty and time poverty among women is starkly evident in the fact that they are at greatest risk of poverty at the stage in their life course during which they form a family and raise children. At that stage, families face the increased expenses associated with having children, and the women in the family also have less time available for paid work. Women face a stark choice between forgoing income-generating opportunities or accepting insecure forms of employment, while struggling to manage their heavy and intense burdens of unpaid care and domestic work responsibilities.

Purpose: This paper explores diverse issues related to the problem of women’s unpaid domestic care work, and as a factor of gender inequality in their professional practice. Research Design: This article concentrated only on the analysis of secondary data available on the topic along with observation of facts in Kazakhstan based on diverse sources. In current conditions, the problem of women's unpaid domestic care work, and consequently, the lack of enough time and energy for professional employment. Distinguish domestic work vs. job/career/occupation, selffulfillment, education, and leisure has a significant impact on women's life satisfaction. Data, and Methodology: This article focuses only on secondary data available in different sources from which the researchers procures comprehensive data and information. Results and conclusion: A family policy that aims to promote combining maternity, and domestic work with paid employment is an effective way to increase the proportion of working mothers/women. It is crucial to not only proportionally distribute the household responsibilities in the family but also to form an effective mechanism of state support for women through the development of the social services sector, as well as the adoption of a system-wide approach to gender equality.

The actualization of gender equality is central to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This will be unachievable if no proactive measures are taken on the extent of women and girls’ involvement in unpaid care and domestic chores. Target 5.4 of the SDG delineated the need to recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructures and social protection policies as well as the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate. An online google questionnaire was used to collect data on the enormity of unpaid care work particularly during the COVID-19 lockdown among women of reproductive age (15-49 years). Data were analysed using univariate and bivariate analytical methods. The results revealed that almost all women of reproductive age (97.6%) in Nigeria are engaged in the enormous task of unpaid care which they reported increased during the COVID-19 lockdown (93.8%) without any form of commensurate remuneration by the government. Cultural norms remained the most significant reason (93.8%) why women and girls are main players in unpaid care and domestic work. Policy to address unpaid care work and women and girls’ representation in decision-making processes is recommended.

Women’s unpaid care and domestic work is gaining relevance in policy-making as well as in academia. Feminist scholars and activists have lobbied successfully for the integration of unpaid care and domestic work into the Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 5.4) of the United Nations in the hope for greater recognition of women’s contribution to the economy. Policy documents about social reproduction highlight women’s disproportionate share of reproductive activities as an obstacle to women’s economic empowerment and as a relic of ‘traditional’ gender roles. Social reproduction is thereby not understood as a merit in itself, but as an obstacle to women’s participation in paid labour. Policy implications will enable certain empowerment effects for some women, but at the same time promote the increasing privatization and commodification of reproductive work across the globe. Rising inequalities between the Global North and South and between women along the categories of class and race will be one major result. To theoretically explain such contradictory effects of the recognition of social reproduction, I use the concept of ‘enclosures’ based on Marx’ ‘primitive accumulation’. Feminist scholars use the concept to explain how unpaid care and housework is commodified or de-commodified to integrate women into the paid labour force or to reduce the costs of social reproduction according to the needs of the economy. The sudden interest in unpaid care and domestic work e.g. in the Sustainable Development Goals can therefore be seen as process of double enclosure, which integrates women into the paid labour force, but also sets the grounds for the further commodification of domestic and care work. This paper aims to critically discuss the sudden interest in unpaid domestic and care work and its contradictory effects from a Marxist feminist perspective and reflects on feminist strategies and movements in global governance. After introducing Marxist perspectives on social reproduction, the question if and how feminist ideas and concepts have been appropriated, the effects and implications of global policies on social reproduction and global inequalities, as well as possible counter-strategies will be discussed.

One in three Australian marriages ends in divorce (ABS, Parental Divorce). While such statistics may be interpreted to mean that marriage is becoming less significant to Australians, many Australians continue to invest heavily in marriage as a constitutive mode of subjectification. Recently released first-wave data from a longitudinal study being conducted with seven thousand high school students in Queensland indicates that the majority of high schoolers expect to get married (Skrbis et al. 76). Significant political attention and debate in Australia has centred on the issue of marriage “equality” in relation to legislating same-sex marriage. Many accounts problematise marriage in Australia today by focussing on the current inequities involved in who can and cannot legally get married, which are important debates to be had in the process of understanding the persistent importance of marriage as a social institution. This paper, however, provides a critical account of “equality” in contemporary heterosexual marriages or heteronormative monogamous relationships. I argue that, far from being a mundane “old” debate, the distribution of unpaid work between spouses has a significant effect on women’s spousal satisfaction, and it calls into question the notion of “marriage equality” in everyday heterosexual marriages whether these are civil or common law relationships. I suggest that the contemporary “Hollywood” fantasy about marriage, which informs the same-sex marriage movement, sets up expectations that belie most people’s lived realities.

Important progress toward gender equality has been made in the past decades, but inequalities linked to gender norms, stereotypes, and the unequal distribution of housework and childcare responsibilities persist. Lifetime events such as marriage and parenthood bring substantial changes in time use among women and men. This paper updates and reinforces the findings of previous studies by analyzing gender differences in the allocation of time among market work and unpaid domestic work. Results from the analysis of time use patterns in 19 countries of different income levels and from various regions suggest that women specialize in unpaid domestic and care work and men specialize in market work. The paper employs propensity score matching to assess the marriage and parenthood penalty on time use patterns over the lifecycle. The findings indicate that women of prime working age are the most penalized on a host of measures, including labor market participation, unpaid domestic work, and leisure time. Men are not necessarily penalized for, and sometimes benefit from, marriage or parenthood.

Care work is essential for individuals, society and the economy. However, it is overwhelmingly done by women and girls, which restricts their ability to participate in education, paid work, politics and community life. In low-resource settings, fetching water or preparing food can be particularly burdensome. In 2018–2019, Oxfam's Women's Economic Empowerment and Care (WE-Care) programme conducted a Household Care Survey (HCS) in five informal settlements of Nairobi, Kenya, to understand the gendered patterns of unpaid care and domestic work across these communities. The study finds that women spend considerably more time than men on unpaid care work per day. It also finds that access to nearby water sources and health care, and ownership of fuel and washing-related equipment, are all associated with reduced hours of care work for women. In addition, community expectations and fear of sanctions for deviating from social norms play an important role in maintaining the gendered division of care work. The report presents recommendations for government, the private sector and development practitioners on how they can contribute to the recognition, reduction and redistribution of unpaid care work.

Our paper examines trends in gender inequalities in unpaid domestic and care work over the short‐ and long‐term in Australia, including assessing the impact of the COVID‐19 lockdowns. We use the concept of time—historical, biographical and transitional—as a framework for our analyses. Drawing on data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, we find wide and continuing gender gaps in unpaid work over the past two decades. We demonstrate that parenthood is a far greater producer and exacerbator of gender inequalities in unpaid domestic and care work than COVID‐19 lockdowns.

Essay on Women Empowerment

Aim of the study: This study investigates the unpaid domestic care work of women factory workers and its impacts on their economic value and emotional well-being in the urban stings of Gilgit. It seeks to highlight the often-overlooked contributions of women in the domestic sphere and the dual burdens of paid and unpaid labor they shoulder. Methodology: adopting quantitative research approach, data were collected through a structured questionnaire administered to a random sample of women factory workers. The survey instrument, based on Tabassum et al. (2023), encompassed diverse domains of care dimension; including child care, elderly care, and special need care. Findings: the results reveal significant time allocation of unpaid care work, which adversely affects the economic well- being of the participants. Women reported high levels of stress and emotional exhaustion, compounded by the lack of recognition and financial compensation for their domestic contributions. Conclusion: The study underscores the urgent need of policy interventions to recognize and value unpaid care work, promoting gender equality and economic justice. It advocates for systemic changes to support women balancing paid and unpaid responsibilities. This research contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the multifaceted impacts of unpaid domestic care work and offers actionable insights for policymakers, academics and activists. Future studies should explore intersectional experiences of women in varying socio-economic contexts inform more inclusive and effective policy frameworks.

ABSTRACTOBJECTIVE Evaluating characteristics of unpaid domestic work and its association with mental disorders, exploring gender differences.METHODS We analyzed cross-sectional data from the second wave of an urban population cohort (n = 2,841) aged 15 and older from a medium-sized city in Bahia (BA). The representative population sample was randomly selected in subsequent multiple steps. We interviewed the survey participants at their homes. This study analyzed sociodemographic, occupational, unpaid domestic work and mental illness data, stratified by sex (gender). We investigated the association between the work-family-personal time conflict, the effort-reward imbalance in domestic and family work and the occurrence of common mental disorders, such as generalized anxiety disorder and depression. We estimated prevalence, prevalence ratios and their respective 95% confidence intervals.RESULTS Among the participants, the unpaid domestic activities were performed by 71.3% of men and 95.2% of women, who were responsible for the investigated activities, except for minor repairs. The percentages of paid work were higher among men (68.1% versus 47.2% among women). The distribution of stressors and conflict experiences showed an inverse situation between genders: men depicted the highest high percentage of low work-family-personal time conflict (39.0%), while among women, the highest percentage was of high conflict (40.0%); 45.8% of the men reported low effort-reward imbalance in domestic and family work, while only 28.8% of women reported low imbalance. The investigated mental disorders were more prevalent among women, who showed a significant association between work-family-personal time conflict and common mental disorders, as well as depression; among men, conflict was positively associated with common mental disorders. The effort-reward imbalance, in turn, was strongly related to CMD (Common Mental Disorders), generalized anxiety disorder and depression among women. Amid men, this discrepancy was only associated to depression.CONCLUSIONS Domestic work persists as a mostly feminine assigned activity. The stressful situations of unpaid domestic work and the work-family-personal time conflict were more strongly associated with adverse effects on the female mental health.