Time Allocation of Men and Women in India: The Role of Bargaining Power

ended

Time allocation among household members, across various paid and unpaid activities throughout the day, gets negotiated through individual preferences, gender norms, and the bargaining power of respective individuals. The time allocation across activities by gender, age, and location is associated with Sustainable Development Goal 5 on Gender Equality (Indicator 5.4.1), and the differences in time allocation by gender are linked to the process of economic development of a country. Despite the societal and economic significance, scholarly discourse on time use is until now mainly restricted to developed countries, with a lack of data hampering the analysis of intrahousehold time allocations in developing-country contexts. In this project, I will use Time Use Survey 1998-99 and 2019 data from India, together with the National Family Health Survey II (1998-99) and V (2019-21) data from India to examine the intrahousehold allocation of time across paid and unpaid activities. I will use econometric specifications to examine the variation in paid work, unpaid work (domestic work, care, other unpaid work), leisure, and necessary activities by considering the intersectionality of gender with socio-economic identities, location, and their change over 1998-99 and 2019. In addition, I will explore how various measures of married women’s power – women’s education level relative to their husbands and mothers-in-law, their decision-making autonomy, and freedom of movement outside the house - influence intra-household time allocations across activities. This project moves beyond the narrative of power previously explored in developed countries and examines the forms of power that influences women’s time allocations in a developing-country context. The approach of this project is likely to be relevant for other countries that are governed by similar gender norms and the findings will add to the evidence base for monitoring the global progress toward SDG 5 and specifically for India.