Women’s Economic Table of Contents Contribution through Their BACKGROUND ...............................................................................................1 Unpaid Household Work: The METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................3 RESULTS ..........................................................................................................5 Case of India General profile of respondents..........................................................5 Time spent on paid and unpaid work ............................................8 Housework ..............................................................................................9 Study authors: Gender and unpaid work..................................................................13 Gender differences in leisure and decision making .................16 Natasha Choudhary Asuthosh Tripathy QUANTIFICATION OF THE UNPAID ACTIVITIES PERFORMED BY Beena George WOMEN .........................................................................................................19 DISCUSSION..................................................................................................25 The monetary value of women’s unpaid household work....32 Researchers: RECOMMEND ATIONS .................................................................................35 Beena George Natasha Choudhary CONCLUSION...............................................................................................37 Ashutosh Tripathy (ESAF) Phaeba Abraham (HealthBridge) REFERENCES.................................................................................................42 List of Figures Editors: Phaeba Abraham Figure 1: Husband’s contribution to domestic work (%)............14 Debra Efroymson Figure 2: How free time is spent .........................................................17 Lori Jones Sian FitzGerald List of Tables Report prepared by: Table 1: Respondents' participation in domestic work .................9 Evangelical Social Action Forum (ESAF) and Table 2: Respondent's involvement in caring for family HealthBridge members......................................................................................................12 Nagpur, India 2009 Table 3: Payment for work done by maid servants ......................22 Table 4: Calculation of women’s wage .............................................24 i Acknowledgments Women in both rural and urban areas are far more involved in a range of domestic activities than men, regularly carrying out he research team acknowledges the great support given by approximately 33 tasks. While half of the husbands helped the Associate Director of ESAF, Mr. George K John. We T their spouses in domestic tasks, that assistance seems to be also extend our heartfelt gratitude for the assistance given by very limited in its nature and extent, with most men and the staff of EMFIL (ESAF Microfinance and Investment women feeling that household work is the responsibility of Limited) during data collection. women. The research team — Ms. Beena George, Senior Manager for Although each method of estimating the economic value of the Research and Planning Department, Ms. Natasha women’s work that was considered has its problems, an Choudhary, Project Officer, and Mr. Ashutosh Tripathy, estimate was arrived at using the cost of paying someone to Assistant Researcher — gratefully acknowledge the perform the 33 tasks typically performed by women. Assigning respondents who gave their valuable time and views. even a very low wage rate for those tasks yielded an annual Summary figure for the value of women’s unpaid household work of US$612.8 billion or 61% of GDP. hile some research has been conducted on the issue of Wthe unpaid work performed by women, no study has yet been conducted to attempt to arrive at a reasonable estimate of the approximate monetary value of the work done by women without pay in India. Such a figure could help address the problem of undervaluing women and contribute to discussions on the actual role of women in the society and thus the importance of rectifying the discrimination which women face from before their birth until their death. This research is thus intended to address a major research gap and to respond to the consequences of treating millions of hard-working Indian women as economically unproductive and no more valuable than beggars and prisoners. This study found that a typical woman’s day starts at about 5 While society recognizes their role in the conventional a.m. and ends after 10 p.m. In addition to their unpaid economy, women stand hidden and unacknowledged in household activities, women often spend six to eight hours per what is termed by Elson (1995) as the ‘Economy of Care’. day on paid activities. This double burden left such women with little time for themselves. ii iii given little or no social or economic importance, and as a Background result, women are perceived with little importance. While the work done by men is widely acknowledged and most men are ndia is a vast country, rich in culture and traditions. The considered as economically productive, women who are Indian constitution grants women equal rights with men, but I engaged in full-time household work are classified by the a strong patriarchal system persists which shapes the lives of Government of India as economically unproductive. Yet the women with traditions that are millennia old. In most Indian same tasks performed by these housewives, if done at another families, daughters are viewed as liabilities and girls are house, become a paid job and therefore valued. conditioned to believe that they are inferior and subordinate to men. Sons, meanwhile, are idolized and celebrated. The origin The Census of India (2001) contains a chapter titled “Non- of what is considered appropriate behaviour for an Indian workers”, comprising the following categories: female can be traced to the rules laid by Manu in 200 B.C.: in v Students of all kinds and levels childhood, a female is subject to her father, in her youth to her v Household workers — all those attending to household husband, and when her “lord” is dead then to her sons. chores like cooking, cleaning of utensils, looking after Given this strong patriarchal tradition, addressing gender children, fetching water, and collecting firewood disparities is no easy task. Traditionalists argue that India has v Dependents, disabled, children not going to school, the survived for millennia with this patriarchal system, so what is elderly the need for changes which are counter to Indian culture? Others would point to the problems of sex-selective abortions, v Pensioners, widows not receiving pension millions of missing girls, dowry murder, low educational v Beggars, prostitutes, and others not engaged in status and high illiteracy in girls and women, and gender economically productive work disparities in employment opportunities and wages to suggest that India cannot enter the modern age without learning to v Others, including convicts in jail and inmates of mental respect the rights of women and girls and addressing the or charitable institutions destructive aspects of traditional culture. One may also observe As a result, over 367 million women in India – or 32% of the that those defending traditional patriarchal culture have no entire population and 65% of all females – have been classified trouble embracing other non-traditional, vast, and sweeping by the Census of India as non-workers, placed in the same cultural changes such as the adoption of use of cars, mobile category as beggars, prostitutes, and prisoners. Of the total of phones and computers. those listed as non-workers in India, 74.3% are women. Such a In addition to the patriarchal culture, common in different categorization of the majority of women cannot fail to have degrees throughout the world, is the equally common problem consequences in policies and programs aimed at women. that while women typically carry out most of the work involved in caring for the home and its residents, such work is 1 2 Methodology insufficient for a representative sample in a country as vast and diverse as India, that very vastness and diversity made a he overall aim of this study was to quantify women’s representative study a near impossibility. Pragmatism and Tunpaid household work in India and attempt to assess an limited budget and time determined the choice of the two sites. approximate economic value for it. Specifically, the research Further, research in India and elsewhere suggests that while objectives were to: the specific tasks performed by women varies within and Obtain data on the average daily time spent by both men across countries, the amount of time women spend on and women on paid and unpaid work; household work and the wide variety of such tasks are nearly universal; therefore, the overall results of the study should be Identify gender differences in terms of leisure time, days broadly applicable throughout India. off/vacation, and decision-making; Since the population did not consist of a homogenous group, Assess gender discrimination in carrying out unpaid the study adopted both purposive and snowball sampling work; techniques. Snowball sampling is a technique for developing a Evaluate the attitudes of married women and men research sample whereby existing study subjects recruit future towards the unpaid work of women in the community; subjects from among their acquaintances, i.e.; one can ask the