How much more does an Indian woman work than a man?

Women are the flavour of this election season. Parties are wooing them with money schemes. Narendra Modi is dangling the Lakhpati Didi Yojana; Mamata Banerjee is showcasing her Lakshmir Bhandar, which she hopes will convert into votes from women for her.

Rahul Gandhi has offered the Mahalakshmi scheme, which promises Rs 1 lakh every year for women of the poorest families. Whether or not the Congress will get the chance to implement it will only become clear after June 4. But this scheme has the distinction of addressing a concern other parties have not: unpaid work by women.

The scheme seeks to compensate women for their work at home that makes their workday much longer than that of men but is never recognised. “If a man works eight hours, a woman works 16 hours,” Rahul had said at a rally in Kannur, speaking about the scheme. They work double shifts.

Not that all of such work can be compensated with money because it also involves the work of love and care. But all parties could perhaps look at the unpaid work of women and its implications, not only for votes but also for its impact on the economy, as is evident from a recent research.

Not all such work can be quantified, either. The detailed research, however, measures one telling aspect of it: the time women spend on unpaid work.

Indian women spend almost ten times more time on unpaid domestic and care work than men, says the research, when worldwide women spend three times more time than men.

The research, conducted by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, uses government data, obtained from the Time Use Survey (2019) of India undertaken by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) from January to December 2019.

The total sample size at the individual level in this study is 445,299, with almost an equal number of men and women.

“While women aged six years and above spend 301 minutes (every day) on unpaid domestic work, men devote a mere 98 minutes to the same,” says the study, published in the March issue of the Journal of Family and Economic Issues.

The findings detail how women’s gender roles and work are aligned with the expectations of a patriarchal society.

Marriage places the heaviest burden on women. Married working-age women spend 331 minutes per day, almost double the time, on unpaid domestic work than unmarried women, who spend about 187 minutes per day.

A substantial number of these women also work outside their homes, work which may not be recognised. About 70 per cent of the women in the country’s labour force work informally in agriculture, according to the study. Women come back from work to begin work at home, with both remaining invisible.

Women from nuclear families (those with four or fewer members) devote more time to unpaid domestic work (320 minutes per day) than women from bigger multi-generational families (303 minutes per day).

Women with more education spend less time on unpaid work. Women with primary education spend 337 minutes every day on such work, followed by women with secondary and higher education, who spend 304 minutes and 281 minutes every day, respectively, on unpaid work.

Community and caste show variations in women’s unpaid labour. Sikh women spend 348 minutes on it every day, Muslim women 330 minutes, Hindu women 323 minutes and Christian women 278 minutes. Upper caste women spend 323 minutes every day on unpaid domestic chores, which reduces for Scheduled Caste women who spend 315 minutes every day on unpaid work. Working-age women from Scheduled Tribe communities spent the least time on unpaid work at 295 minutes every day. “Upper caste women who may have higher economic status with a substantial level of education may not opt for paid work that does not match their social and economic status,” says the research.

However, women from poorer households spend more time on unpaid domestic work at 317 minutes every day compared with women from the richest households who spend 304 minutes on it every day.

The study indicates that having both elderly men and women in the family increases women’s unpaid domestic work and so does the presence of school-going children.

Life in rural areas can significantly increase women’s unpaid work. Paradoxically, educated women may find it more difficult to join a profession because of the lack of suitable employment, transport facilities and agricultural dominance, the research says.

Yet, despite everything, women’s labour force participation in India could overtake men’s in paid work by 2060, the research says, referring to another research. The effects of class, caste and community have to be considered when it comes to women’s work opportunities.

The Periodic Labour Force Survey states that there has been a considerable increase in women’s labour force participation in the paid labour market in India — from 23.3 per cent in 2017-18, it has gone up to 37 per cent in 2022-23.

Higher education can lead to more unpaid work for women due to sociocultural norms, the study stresses. “Policies should focus on women’s education and breaking down these norms. A developed labour market is also essential for increasing employment potential,” it says.

It is also estimated that if women paid less time on unpaid work, it could add up to $300 billion to India’s GDP.

Not all women need all unpaid work to be compensated by money because a lot of it is the labour of love. But all labour should not be lost; nor should it be pre-decided for women. If the burden of domestic work is not relieved, women cannot function fully in other work. And women who do not work outside their homes should not be undermined and given a lesser social status for doing what holds a nation and its economy up.