Time Use Survey: Women take on most of household and caregiving work

Women continue to bear the brunt of housework and caregiving with just about a quarter of women participating in employment and related activities in 2024 although there has been a slight shift in these trends over the use.

The results of the Time Use Survey, 2024, which was released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on Tuesday, reveal that while there has been an increase in women’s participation in employment-related activities and a greater acknowledgement of caregiving activities regardless of gender within Indian families, women spend a far greater proportion of their daily time in unpaid domestic and caregiving work than men.

The Time Use Survey is an important source of information about the activities that are performed by the population and the time spent on it. India is among the few countries, including Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the US and China that conduct the National Time Use Survey to analyse how people allocate their time to various daily activities. “The primary objective of the Survey is to measure the participation of men and women in paid and unpaid activities,” said an official release.

Female participants aged 15-59 years spent about 305 minutes or a little over five hours daily in unpaid domestic services in 2024 although it is marginally lower than 315 minutes they spent on these activities in 2019. In terms of average time (in minutes) spent in a day per participant of age 6 and above, females spent 289 minutes daily on unpaid domestic services in 2024 compared to just 88 minutes by men. As much as 81.5% of females above the age of 6 participated in unpaid domestic work compared to 27.1% of men in 2024, the data showed.

Similarly, female participants spent about 140 minutes in a day in caregiving activities, compared to 74 minutes spent by male participants aged 15-59 years. “This corroborates the Indian social fabric wherein most of the caregiving responsibilities for household members are borne by the females of the household,” said the official statement.

This was contrasted by the time and proportion of participants in employment and related activities.

During 2024, 75% of the males and 25% of the females in the age group 15-59, participated in employment and related activities during the reference period of 24 hours. Such participation was 70.9% for males and 21.8% for females in the age group 15-59 years during 2019.

In terms of time, males aged above 6 spent 473 minutes or 7.8 hours every day in employment and related activities compared to 341 minutes or 5.6 hours by females aged above 6. Males above 6 years of age spent 137 minutes in production of goods for own final use compared to 104 minutes spent by women.

In terms of education, 89.3% of children aged 6-14 participated in learning activities and they spent around 413 minutes or 6.8 hours in a day for such activities. Significantly, both males and females above the age of 6 spent the same time on learning activities.

The survey also found that people aged 6 and above spent 11% of their days’ time in culture, leisure, mass media and sports practices during 2024, compared to 9.9% of the days’ time spent during 2019.

The present TUS conducted during January-December 2024 is the second such All-India Survey. The first such all India survey was carried out during January-December 2019. The 2024 survey covered 1,39,487 households and enumerated 454,192 persons aged 6 years and above. Information on time use was collected for persons aged 6 and above with a reference period of 24 hours.