In the well-researched book, Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez writes, “Globally, 75% of unpaid work is done by women.” She claims that 66% of women’s work time in India is spent on unpaid work. In other words, women in India spend five hours a day in unpaid household work. “Trip-chaining”, Perez explains, is a pattern of small, interconnected errands women do as part of their unpaid household and care work, such as dropping children to school, buying groceries, taking the elderly to the doctor and so on.
A working woman needs constant intellectual inputs to stay competitive. When household chores burden her, she needs to cut down on either reading or sleeping to squeeze out some time to make do. To statistically substantiate what I knew from my experience, I recently created a Google form listing 20 household chores and asked respondents to answer who did all these tasks at home. The answers received from a wide range of working women in Delhi, Calcutta, Bengaluru and Mumbai revealed that most of the unpaid household work is done by women, except for renewing subscriptions and paying bills. The survey divided the respondents into two age categories: 25-45 years and 45 years and above. The data revealed only a marginal difference between the two age groups when it came to their husbands contributing to domestic work.
The respondents are well educated — 65.7% have a Master’s degree, 21.2% are graduates, and 9.1% have done their M.Phil or PhD. Their academic qualifications and higher earnings did not lead to a more equitable distribution of unpaid care work.
Making tea seems to be the sole responsibility of women. A staggering 82.8% of the working women, the survey revealed, make tea at home. Out of them, 61.6% never get any help from their male partners; only 8% said that their husbands make tea and not them.
Washing dishes and mopping are mostly done by the hired help, but cooking is the woman’s responsibility. An overwhelming 82% cook at home; only 18% are assisted by men in the kitchen. Dusting, similarly, is done mostly by the women themselves. While 38% said they hire domestic helps for the job, 61.6% do it by themselves. Only 9% get help from their spouses for this work. Washing clothes is entirely the responsibility of the woman; 73% do the laundry at home. Even though 24% get help from their husbands, only 8% of men do laundry without their wives’ support.
The early morning routine of dropping off kids at school, however, is equally shared by the spouses — 50% of the women take their children to school; 37% of the men perform the same task. Helping kids with their studies is largely done by mothers. While 59% of women take their children to the doctor, only 25% of them get help from their menfolk. On the other hand, 39% of women provide elderly care by themselves.
Data showed that men participate in two activities — bill payment and subscription renewal — outnumbering women 70-30. Astonishingly, 51% of working women clean toilets themselves. The burden of additional work and the insensitivity associated with it adversely impact the mental, emotional, and physical health of women. The plight of a woman who is a homemaker is greater given her economic dependence on her husband.
Women who spent their youth taking care of their children and husband, sacrificing their careers in the process, have been hit the hardest by social instability, financial vulnerability, and uncertainty in the wake of the pandemic. A discomforting trend emerging out of this situation is young women’s aversion to marriage.
“[H]ousework time is most equal by gender for single men and women,” observes Perez insightfully. When married or cohabit, women’s share in household work thus goes up while men’s go down.
Manimala Roy is an economist with a special focus on migration and gender
