On an average, women spend 299 minutes in a day doing unpaid domestic services for household members as opposed to men who spend only 99 minutes, found a first-of-its-kind Time Use Survey (TUS) which was conducted by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation. Men spend only 1.7% of their time in unpaid domestic work while women spend 16.9% of their time. 26.1% men and 81.2% women are engaged in unpaid domestic work.
The survey also found that women also spend more time than men in unpaid caregiving services for household members. Men only spend 76 minutes while women spend 134 minutes per day engaging in caregiving.
The survey highlights that a large chunk of unpaid work is performed by women while paid work is performed by men. Men spend 459 minutes per day in paid employment and related activities compared to women who take part in 333 minutes in a day.
Common perception indicates that women spend more time socialising and communicating, as well as in community participation, and religious practice while the report indicates otherwise.
Indians spend a large proportion of their day socialising and engaging in leisure activities. Men engage in socialising and communication, community participation and religious practice for 147 minutes per day when compared to 139 minutes spent by women doing the same.
Men also take part in 164 minutes in leisure activities including culture-related activities, mass-media and sports practices while the participation time of women is slightly greater at 165 minutes.
The report also shows that Indians are not particularly interested in unpaid volunteer work. Only 2.7% men participate in volunteer work for 102 minutes and 2% women for 99 minutes.
Time Use Surveys capture the time spent by the population on various activities while providing a framework to measure them. They are different from other surveys also because it can capture time dispositions on various human activities with detail. The primary objective of the Time Use Survey is to measure the participation of men and women in paid and unpaid activities.
National Statistical Office (NSO) had conducted the survey in India for the first time from January to December 2019. The survey covered 1,38,799 households with 82,897 in rural India and 55,902 in urban India. Information was collected about time use from individuals who are six years and above. The survey gathered information from 4,47,250 persons who are aged 6 years and above 2,73,195 people in rural and 1,74,055 people in urban.