Opinion
Mint Quick Edit | Daily time use: We must bridge the gender gap
Summary
- The latest Time Use Survey, for 2024, reminds us that women in India bear an unfair burden of caregiving and domestic work. For the economy’s emergence, patriarchal notions of gender roles need to fade away.
The latest Time Use Survey released by India's statistics ministry earlier this week demands attention. Not for a surprise finding, but for serving us a timely reminder of a glaring gender disparity.
Also Read: Women in STEM: The times they are a-changing
While men and women in 2024 said they spent a similar amount of time on "self care", which includes eating, sleeping and personal hygiene, on average, women aged 15-59 reported devoting a fifth (about 305 minutes) of their day to unpaid domestic work, plus a tenth of it (140 minutes) to caregiving. In contrast, men spent much less time on those.
Also Read: Manu Joseph: A right that women don’t have is the right to mediocrity
Although the burden of home duties borne by women has eased a bit since this survey's 2019 findings, the skew spotlights a major hurdle in increasing the participation of women in India's workforce, which must improve sharply for the economy to reach its Viksit Bharat target.
Also Read: Rahul Jacob: Working for women bosses is a privilege one must treasure
State-led efforts aimed at women's welfare mostly comprise cash transfers freebies like bus rides and other vote baits. What's needed is a social transformation in favour of family-level gender equity that reaches all homes across the country. Men must share household chores. Let's not allow patriarchal notions of gender roles drag development.
