What do Indians do with their time? The ministry of statistics and programme implementation sought to answer this intriguing question with the Time Use in India- 2019 survey. Worryingly — but unsurprisingly — the findings suggest a wide gender disparity in the sphere of work. Only 18.4 per cent women participate in paid employment activities compared to 57.3 per cent men. The glass ceiling evidently is intact. Perhaps this is only to be expected given that 81.2 per cent of women have to shoulder the burden of unpaid domestic labour like cooking, cleaning, care-giving and sundry other household chores as opposed to only 26.1 per cent of men. Unpaid domestic labour is crippling in two ways: it undermines women’s rights and agency as well as their ability to make choices. This crushing burden of domestic duty has other collateral damage: it prevents women from pursuing higher education, employment opportunities, raising their skill-level and tending to their own well-being. Last year, the National Sample Survey Office attempted to put a value on such work in terms of the gross domestic product. In a deeply patriarchal society like India, public acknowledgment — official statistics — of the economic importance of women’s unpaid labour would make little difference unless the skewed division of labour remains uncorrected. Ironically, the situation is no better for women who have shattered the glass ceiling. Women having to juggle professional demands with housework, an independent study found, either fall seriously ill or underperform.

The survey also revealed interesting aspects about leisure. More than 91 per cent of Indians, irrespective of gender, are engaged in recreation, socializing and religious practice but less than 3 per cent are willing to take on unpaid volunteer work — community service, for instance — in their free time. This perhaps explains the reason behind the weakening of the culture of empathy in a country that venerated the idea of seva. Moreover, economic progress is predicated upon creativity. Finite employment opportunities, drudgery, the challenge of balancing professional and domestic obligations — Indian women bear this load uncomplainingly — are enough to sap the creative energies of India’s human resources. Policy interventions should, therefore, look not only into making labour roles equitable but also into making work enjoyable.