What explains the gender gap in unpaid housework and care work in India?

Motivation

Although women continue to bear an unequal burden when it comes to unpaid housework and care work regardless of the level of economic progress, a systematic analysis of the gender gap in terms of the time allocated to these responsibilities has not been carried out in the context of India so far, primarily due to the lack of national-level data.

Purpose

This article measures how the burden of unpaid housework and care work is shared between men and women and investigates the factors associated with the allocation of time.

Methods and approach

We use the first nationally representative Time Use Survey (2019) data of India and employ Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition analysis to explain the gender gap in unpaid housework and care work.

Findings

After accounting for individual characteristics and household factors, the regression analysis shows that women spend a little over three hours more per day on unpaid housework and 20 minutes more on unpaid care work than men. The decomposition analysis reveals that the differences in socioeconomic and demographic factors between men and women only contribute a small part of the average gender gap in unpaid housework and care work. In other words, most of the gap in unpaid work at home between men and women in India can be attributed to structural factors, including inadequate infrastructural support and social programmes to alleviate the burden of housework and childcare, as well as the prevalence of unobserved gender norms and practices that pin the responsibility of unpaid housework and care work on women.

Policy implications

To achieve equitable distribution of unpaid work between women and men, there is a need to provide more opportunities for women to participate in remunerative paid employment. Infrastructural support and policies that can reduce the burden of time spent by women in day-to-day unpaid housework and care activities are crucial to reduce the gender gap.