Why in the News?
- Experts have urged the government to refine the Time Use Survey to capture whether women’s rising unpaid care work is a matter of choice or obligation.
What’s in Today’s Article?
- Unpaid Care Work (Introduction, Impact on Female Labour Force, Limitations of TUS, Recommendations, etc.)
Introduction
- Unpaid care work forms the invisible backbone of economies worldwide, yet it remains undercounted and undervalued.
- In India, women disproportionately shoulder this burden, spending hours daily on household chores, caregiving, and community work that go unrecognised in formal economic indicators like GDP.
- While India conducts a Time Use Survey (TUS) to map these patterns, experts argue that it does not fully capture the reasons behind women’s engagement in unpaid labour.
- The need for more granular data has become crucial as female labour force participation rates (FLFPR) in India remain among the lowest in the world, raising concerns over gender inequality in economic and social outcomes.
Women’s Unpaid Care Work in India
- Globally, women spend three times more hours than men on unpaid care work. In India, the gender gap is even more striking.
- According to the 2019 TUS, Indian women spend 4.5 hours daily on unpaid household and caregiving tasks, compared to just 1.5 hours for men. Activities include:
- Cooking, cleaning, and household maintenance.
- Caring for children, elderly, and sick family members.
- Community-related unpaid services, such as water collection.
- While vital, these activities are excluded from GDP accounting, thereby undervaluing women’s economic contributions.
- This unpaid work also constrains women’s access to education, skill development, and formal employment, creating a vicious cycle of economic dependency.
- Impact on Female Labour Force Participation
- India’s female labour force participation rate hovers around 23% (PLFS 2022-23), far lower than global averages and peers like China (61%) and Bangladesh (38%).
- A significant factor behind this gap is the disproportionate unpaid care burden on women.
- The absence of institutional support, such as affordable childcare, elderly care infrastructure, and flexible work arrangements, worsens the problem.
Limitations of the Time Use Survey
- The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) conducted India’s first TUS in 1998-99, followed by the second in 2019.
- While the survey captures the number of hours men and women spend on paid and unpaid activities, experts argue it falls short in answering critical questions:
- Choice vs. Compulsion: Are women engaging in unpaid care work voluntarily, or because societal and economic pressures leave them with no option?
- Quality of Work: Does unpaid care work affect women’s health, aspirations, and capacity to enter paid employment?
- Policy Integration: How can the findings be used to design childcare schemes, flexible employment policies, and social security?
- Without capturing these nuances, the TUS risks portraying unpaid labour as an accepted “choice” rather than an economic compulsion rooted in gender norms.
Expert Recommendations for Improvement
- Several labour economists, gender experts, and social researchers have called for reforms in how India measures unpaid care work:
- Refined Survey Methodology
- Introduce qualitative questions on whether women see unpaid care work as a duty or a choice.
- Capture intergenerational differences, as younger women may perceive unpaid labour differently than older cohorts.
- Integration with Labour Statistics
- Policy-Oriented Use of Data
- Use findings to strengthen schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) and Anganwadi services, ensuring women get institutional support for care responsibilities.
- Recognition in GDP Accounting
- Explore satellite accounts or alternative GDP frameworks that assign economic value to unpaid care work.
