IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devpol/v42y2024i1ne12730.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Athary Janiso
  • Prakash Kumar Shukla
  • Bheemeshwar Reddy A

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Athary Janiso & Prakash Kumar Shukla & Bheemeshwar Reddy A, 2024. "What explains the gender gap in unpaid housework and care work in India?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 42(1), January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devpol:v:42:y:2024:i:1:n:e12730
    DOI: 10.1111/dpr.12730
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12730
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/dpr.12730?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Gershuny & John Robinson, 1988. "Historical changes in the household division of labor," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 25(4), pages 537-552, November.
    2. Abhilasha Srivastava, 2020. "Time Use and Household Division of Labor in India—Within‐Gender Dynamics," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 46(2), pages 249-285, June.
    3. Farzana Afridi & Taryn Dinkelman & Kanika Mahajan, 2018. "Why are fewer married women joining the work force in rural India? A decomposition analysis over two decades," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 783-818, July.
    4. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    5. Gigi Foster & Charlene M. Kalenkoski, 2013. "Tobit or OLS? An empirical evaluation under different diary window lengths," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(20), pages 2994-3010, July.
    6. Marianne Bertrand & Emir Kamenica & Jessica Pan, 2015. "Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 571-614.
    7. Burca Kizilirmak & Emel Memis, 2009. "The Unequal Burden of Poverty on Time Use," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_572, Levy Economics Institute.
    8. Jonathan Gershuny & Oriel Sullivan, 2014. "Household structure and housework: assessing the contributions of all household members, with a focus on children and youths," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 7-27, March.
    9. Sanjiv Gupta & Michael Ash, 2008. "Whose money, whose time? A nonparametric approach to modeling time spent on housework in the United States," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 93-120.
    10. Swaminathan, Madhura, 2020. "Time-Use Survey Report 2019: What Do We Learn About Rural Women?," Review of Agrarian Studies, Foundation for Agrarian Studies, vol. 10(2), December.
    11. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    12. Ronald L. Oaxaca & Michael R. Ransom, 1999. "Identification in Detailed Wage Decompositions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(1), pages 154-157, February.
    13. Almudena Sevilla-Sanz & Jose Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal & Cristina Fernandez, 2010. "Gender Roles and the Division of Unpaid Work in Spanish Households," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 137-184.
    14. Lan Liu & Fiona MacPhail & Xiao-yuan Dong, 2018. "Gender, Work Burden, and Mental Health in Post-Reform China," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 194-217, April.
    15. Charlene Kalenkoski & Karen Hamrick & Margaret Andrews, 2011. "Time Poverty Thresholds and Rates for the US Population," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 104(1), pages 129-155, October.
    16. Xiao-yuan Dong & Xinli An, 2015. "Gender Patterns and Value of Unpaid Care Work: Findings From China's First Large-Scale Time Use Survey," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(3), pages 540-560, September.
    17. Verónica Amarante & Cecilia Rossel, 2018. "Unfolding Patterns of Unpaid Household Work in Latin America," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 1-34, January.
    18. Debra Anne Donahoe, 1999. "Measuring Women's Work in Developing Countries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 25(3), pages 543-576, September.
    19. Hersch, Joni & Stratton, Leslie S, 1994. "Housework, Wages, and the Division of Housework Time for Employed Spouses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 120-125, May.
    20. Thomas Bauer & Mathias Sinning, 2008. "An extension of the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition to nonlinear models," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 92(2), pages 197-206, May.
    21. Bina Agarwal, 1997. "''Bargaining'' and Gender Relations: Within and Beyond the Household," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 1-51.
    22. Joni Hersch & Leslie S. Stratton, 1997. "Housework, Fixed Effects, and Wages of Married Workers," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(2), pages 285-307.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nyagweta, David Tinashe, 2024. "A gender comparison of factors associated with time use towards unpaid domestic, caregiving services and selfcare in Kenya," MPRA Paper 122442, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Arun Jose & Meghna Dutta, 2024. "Held back by homes: effects of domestic work on occupational choices of women in India," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 559-599, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Athary Janiso & Prakash Kumar Shukla & Bheemeshwar Reddy A, 2021. "What Explains Gender Gap in Unpaid Household and Care Work in India?," Papers 2106.15376, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2021.
    2. Begoña Álvarez & Daniel Miles-Touya, 2019. "Gender imbalance in housework allocation: a question of time?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 1257-1287, December.
    3. Leanne Roncolato & Alex Roomets, 2020. "Who will change the “baby?” Examining the power of gender in an experimental setting," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 823-852, September.
    4. Hélène Couprie & Elisabeth Cudeville & Catherine Sofer, 2020. "Efficiency versus gender roles and stereotypes: an experiment in domestic production," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(1), pages 181-211, March.
    5. Amaia Altuzarra & Catalina Gálvez-Gálvez & Ana González-Flores, 2020. "Do Spanish Dual-Earner Couples Share Unpaid Work Equally?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 731-763, August.
    6. Hwang, Jisoo & Lee, Chulhee & Lee, Esther, 2019. "Gender norms and housework time allocation among dual-earner couples," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 102-116.
    7. Boll Christina & Rossen Anja & Wolf André, 2017. "The EU Gender Earnings Gap: Job Segregation and Working Time as Driving Factors," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 237(5), pages 407-452, October.
    8. J. Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal & José Alberto Molina & Yu Zhu, 2018. "Intergenerational mobility of housework time in the United Kingdom," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 911-937, December.
    9. de Bruin, Anne & Liu, Na, 2020. "The urbanization-household gender inequality nexus: Evidence from time allocation in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    10. Juan Carlos Campaña & Jose Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal & Jorge Velilla, 2023. "Measuring Gender Gaps in Time Allocation in Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 165(2), pages 519-553, January.
    11. Michael E. Martell & Leanne Roncolato, 2020. "Share of Household Earnings and Time Use of Women in Same-Sex and Different-Sex Households," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 46(3), pages 414-437, June.
    12. Vivien Procher & Nolan Ritter & Colin Vance, 2018. "Housework Allocation in Germany: The Role of Income and Gender Identity," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 99(1), pages 43-61, March.
    13. Catherine Sofer & Claire Thibout, 2019. "Women’s investment in career and the household division of labour," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(60), pages 6535-6557, December.
    14. Barigozzi, Francesca & Cremer, Helmuth & Roeder, Kerstin, 2020. "Having it all, for all: Child-care subsidies and income distribution reconciled," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 188-211.
    15. Cavapozzi, Danilo & Francesconi, Marco & Nicoletti, Cheti, 2024. "Dividing Housework between Partners: Individual Preferences and Social Norms," IZA Discussion Papers 17370, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Rickard Eriksson & Magnus Nermo, 2010. "Care for Sick Children as a Proxy for Gender Equality in the Family," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 97(3), pages 341-356, July.
    17. Vassilis Monastiriotis & Angelo Martelli, 2021. "Crisis, Adjustment and Resilience in the Greek Labor Market: An Unemployment Decomposition Approach," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 44(1), pages 85-112, January.
    18. Richard Mussa, 2013. "Rural--urban differences in parental spending on children's primary education in Malawi," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(6), pages 789-811, December.
    19. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5j2m1g6i7j8pnapkjvifl6e30f is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Christina Boll & Malte Jahn & Andreas Lagemann, 2017. "The gender lifetime earnings gap—exploring gendered pay from the life course perspective," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 25(1), pages 1-53, March.
    21. Caterina Muratori, 2021. "The Impact of Abortion Access on Violence Against Women," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2021-03, Department of Economics, University of Reading.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devpol:v:42:y:2024:i:1:n:e12730. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/odioruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.