gender inequality in the indian family essay

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Gender equality.

Every child deserves to reach her or his full potential, but gender inequalities in their lives and in the lives of those who care for them hinder this reality.

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Accelerating progress and opportunities across India for every girl and every boy

Wherever they live in India girls and boys see gender inequality in their homes and communities every day – in textbooks, in movies, in the media and among the men and women who provide their care and support.

Across India gender inequality results in unequal opportunities, and while it impacts on the lives of both genders, statistically it is girls that are the most disadvantaged.

Globally girls have higher survival rates at birth, are more likely to be developmentally on track, and just as likely to participate in preschool, but India is the only large country where more girls die than boys . Girls are also more likely to drop out of school.

In India girls and boys experience adolescence differently. While boys tend to experience greater freedom, girls tend to face extensive limitations on their ability to move freely and to make decisions affecting their work, education, marriage and social relationships.

As girls and boys age the gender barriers continue to expand and continue into adulthood where we see only a quarter of women in the formal workplace.

Some Indian women are global leaders and powerful voices in diverse fields but most women and girls in India do not fully enjoy many of their rights due to deeply entrenched patriarchal views, norms, traditions and structures.

India will not fully develop unless both girls and boys are equally supported to reach their full potential.

There are risks, violations and vulnerabilities girls face just because they are girls. Most of these risks are directly linked to the economic, political, social and cultural disadvantages girls deal with in their daily lives. This becomes acute during crisis and disasters.

With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, girls become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless girls are valued more.                   

The solution

It is critical to enhance the value of girls by investing in and empowering them, with education, life skills, sport and much more.

By increasing the value of girls we can collectively contribute to the achievement of specific results, some short-term (increasing access to education, reducing anaemia), others medium-term (ending child marriage) and others long-term (eliminating gender-biased sex selection).   

Changing the value of girls has to include men, women and boys. It has to mobilize many sectors in society. Only when society’s perception changes, will the rights of all the girls and all the boys in India be fulfilled.

Empowering girls requires focused investment and collaboration. Providing girls with the services and safety, education and skills they need in daily life can reduce the risks they face and enable them to fully develop and contribute to India’s growth.

Girls have an especially difficult time accessing life-saving resources, information and social networks in their daily life.  Access to programmes specifically tailored to the needs of girls – with a focus on education and developing life skills, ending violence and incorporating the needs and contributions of girls from vulnerable groups, including those with disabilities, can strengthen the resilience of millions of girls. Long-term solutions designed with and for girls can further strengthen this resilience and be a pathway of transformational and lifelong opportunity for girls.

All girls, especially adolescent girls, need platforms to voice the challenges they face in everyday life and explore the solutions that work for them so they can build better futures for themselves and their communities.

UNICEF India’s 2018-2022 Country Programme has been developed in response to the identification of deprivations that Indian children face, including gender based deprivations. Each programmatic outcome is committed to a gender priority that is noted explicitly in its programme, budget and results. These include:  

• Health: Reducing excess female mortality under five and supporting equal care-seeking behaviour for girls and boys. (Example: front-line workers encourage families to take sick baby girls to the hospital immediately) 
• Nutrition: Improving nutrition of women and girls, especially by promoting more equitable eating practices (Example: women cooperatives develop and implement their own micro-plans for improved nutrition in their villages) 
• Education: Gender responsive support to enable out-of-school girls and boys to learn and enabling more gender-responsive curricula and pedagogy (Example: implementing new strategies for identifying vulnerable out of school girls and boys, overhaul of textbooks so that the language, images and messages do not perpetuate gender stereotypes) 
• Child protection: Ending child and early marriage (Example: supporting panchayats to become “child-marriage free”, facilitating girls and boys clubs that teach girls sports, photography, journalism and other non-traditional activities) 
• WASH: Improving girls’ access to menstrual hygiene management, including through well-equipped separate toilets in schools (Example: developing gender guidelines from Swacch Bharat Mission, supporting states to implement MHM policy) 
• Social policy: Supporting state governments to develop gender-responsive cash transfer programmes and supporting women’s leadership in local governance (Example: cash transfer programme in West Bengal to enable girls to stay in school, a Resource Centre for women panchayat leaders in Jharkhand) 
• Disaster risk reduction: Enabling greater gender disaggregation of information management for disaster risk reduction and more leadership and participation of women and girls (Example: greater women’s leadership and participation in Village Disaster Management Committees) 

In addition, three cross-cutting themes will support all outcomes: 

• Joint C4D-Gender strategy: UNICEF’s Communication for Development (C4D) team develops social and behaviour change communication to support each outcome. These communications prioritize efforts to change negative gender norms like unequal feeding, unequal investment in young girls and boys, harmful MHM practices and perpetuation of lower value of girls than boys through wedding dowry. 
• Advocating for and promoting equal value of girls: UNICEF’s Communications, Advocacy and Partnerships team works with media, influencers and gamechangers to advocate for UNICEF priorities, which, in the 2018-2022 programme, includes Equal Value of Girls and Boys. 
• Increasing and improving girls’ and women’s safe mobility: UNICEF India has begun work in some states to work on new programmes with new partners to improve the ability and freedom of women and girls, including to access government services like schools and hospitals.  

Strategic partnerships  

Key partners include the Ministry of Women and Child Development, especially its leadership of the Beti Bachao Beti Padao Programme, which UNICEF India is supporting at the national and state level. UNICEF India works closely with other UN agencies to support gender equality, especially with United Nations Population Fund and UN Women. Civil society organizations, including gender experts and activities are also key partners.  

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Achieving gender equality in India: what works, and what doesn’t

Research fellow, United Nations University

Disclosure statement

Smriti Sharma does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

United Nations University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Discrimination against women and girls is a pervasive and long-running phenomenon that characterises Indian society at every level.

India’s progress towards gender equality, measured by its position on rankings such as the Gender Development Index has been disappointing, despite fairly rapid rates of economic growth .

In the past decade, while Indian GDP has grown by around 6%, there has been a large decline in female labour force participation from 34% to 27%. The male-female wage gap has been stagnant at 50% (a recent survey finds a 27% gender pay gap in white-collar jobs).

Crimes against women show an upward trend , in particular brutal crimes such as rapes, dowry deaths, and honour killings. These trends are disturbing as a natural prediction would be that with growth comes education and prosperity, and a possible decline in adherence to traditional institutions and socially prescribed gender roles that hold women back.

A preference for sons

Cultural institutions in India, particularly those of patrilineality (inheritance through male descendants) and patrilocality (married couples living with or near the husband’s parents), play a central role in perpetuating gender inequality and ideas about gender-appropriate behaviour.

A culturally ingrained parental preference for sons - emanating from their importance as caregivers for parents in old age - is linked to poorer consequences for daughters.

The dowry system, involving a cash or in-kind payment from the bride’s family to the groom’s at the time of marriage, is another institution that disempowers women. The incidence of dowry payment, which is often a substantial part of a household’s income, has been steadily rising over time across all regions and socioeconomic classes.

This often results in dowry-related violence against women by their husbands and in-laws if the dowry is considered insufficient or as a way to demand more payments.

These practices create incentives for parents not to have girl children or to invest less in girls’ health and education. Such parental preferences are reflected in increasingly masculine sex ratios in India . In 2011, there were 919 girls under age six per 1000 boys, despite sex determination being outlawed in India.

This reinforces the inferior status of Indian women and puts them at risk of violence in their marital households. According to the National Family and Health Survey of 2005-06 , 37% of married women have been victims of physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their spouse.

Affirmative action

There is clearly a need for policy initiatives to empower women as gender disparities in India persist even against the backdrop of economic growth.

Current literature provides pointers from policy changes that have worked so far. One unique policy experiment in village-level governance that mandated one-third representation for women in positions of local leadership has shown promising results .

Evaluations of this affirmative action policy have found that in villages led by women, the preferences of female residents are better represented, and women are more confident in reporting crimes that earlier they may have considered too stigmatising to bring to attention.

Female leaders also serve as role models and raise educational and career aspirations for adolescent girls and their parents .

Behavioural studies find that while in the short run there is backlash by men as traditional gender roles are being challenged, the negative stereotype eventually disappears . This underscores the importance of sustained affirmative action as a way to reduce gender bias.

Another policy change aimed at equalising land inheritance rights between sons and daughters has been met with a more mixed response . While on the one hand, it led to an increase in educational attainment and age at marriage for daughters, on the other hand, it increased spousal conflict leading to more domestic violence.

Improvements in labour market prospects also have the potential to empower women. An influential randomisation study found that job recruiter visits to villages to provide information to young women led to positive effects on their labour market participation and enrolment in professional training.

This also led to an increase in age at marriage and childbearing, a drop in desired number of children, and an increase in school enrolment of younger girls not exposed to the programme.

Recent initiatives on training and recruiting young women from rural areas for factory-based jobs in cities provide economic independence and social autonomy that they were unaccustomed to in their parental homes.

Getting to parity

For India to maintain its position as a global growth leader, more concerted efforts at local and national levels, and by the private sector are needed to bring women to parity with men.

While increasing representation of women in the public spheres is important and can potentially be attained through some form of affirmative action, an attitudinal shift is essential for women to be considered as equal within their homes and in broader society.

Educating Indian children from an early age about the importance of gender equality could be a meaningful start in that direction.

This is the first of a series of articles in partnership with UNU-WIDER and EconFilms on responding to crises worldwide.

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Gender issues in India: an amalgamation of research

Subscribe to global connection, shamika ravi and shamika ravi former brookings expert, economic advisory council member to the prime minister and secretary - government of india nirupama jayaraman nj nirupama jayaraman.

March 10, 2017

Content from the Brookings Institution India Center is now archived . After seven years of an impactful partnership, as of September 11, 2020, Brookings India is now the Centre for Social and Economic Progress , an independent public policy institution based in India.

The views are of the author(s).

Forty-two years have passed since the United Nations first decided to commemorate March 8 th as International Women’s Day, marking a historical transition in the feminist movement. Gender remains a critically important and largely ignored lens to view development issues across the world. On this past occasion of International Women’s Day 2017, here is an amalgamation of gendered learning outcomes across various crucial themes for public policy in India, emerging from Brookings India’s past research on political economy, financial inclusion and health.

Political Economy

In 2016, India ranked 130 out of 146 in the Gender Inequality Index released by the UNDP.  It is evident that a stronger turn in political discourse is required, taking into consideration both public and private spaces. The normalization of intra-household violence is a huge detriment to the welfare of women. Crimes against women have doubled in the period between 1991 and 2011. NFHS data reports that 37 per cent of married women in India have experienced physical or sexual violence by a spouse while 40 per cent have experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence by a spouse. While current policy discourse recommends employment as a form of empowerment for women, data presents a disturbing correlation between female participation in labour force and their exposure to domestic violence. The NFHS-3 reports that women employed at any time in the past 12 months have a much higher prevalence of violence (39-40 per cent) than women who were not employed (29 per cent). The researchers advocate a multi-faceted approach to women’s empowerment beyond mere labour force participation, taking into consideration extra-household bargaining power.

Read more at: “ Beginning a new conversation on Women ”.

Gender inequality extends across various facets of society. Political participation is often perceived as a key factor to rectify this situation. However, gender bias extends to electoral politics and representative governance as well. The relative difference between male and female voters is the key to understanding gender inequality in politics. While the female voter turnout has been steadily increasing, the number of female candidates fielded by parties has not increased. More women contest as independents, which does not provide the cover for extraneous costs otherwise available when they are part of a political party.

However, women also act as agents of political change for other women. In the Bihar elections in 2005, when re-elections were held, the percentage of female voters had increased from 42.5 to 44.5 per cent while those of male voters declined from 50 to 47 per cent in the interim period of eight months. As a direct result, 37 per cent of the constituencies saw anti-incumbency voting. The average growth rate of women voters was nearly three times in those constituencies where there was a difference in the winning party. District-wise disaggregation of voter registration also supports this hypothesis in the case of Bihar indicating the percolation of the winds of change. This illustration proves that women are no longer under the complete control of the men in their family in terms of electoral participation. The situation is only bound to improve from here. With the introduction of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), vulnerable sections like women now have more freedom of choice in their vote. Further, poll related incidents of violence against women have significantly decreased since the phased introduction of EVMs across multi-level elections in India.

Read more at:

• Interview on Gender Inequality in Politics
• Women voters can tip the scales in Bihar
• Using technology to Strengthen Democracy

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Extending the conversation to political representation is the next phase in the conversation. Women make up merely 22 per cent of lower houses in parliaments around the world and in India, this number is less than half at 10.8 per cent in the outgoing Lok Sabha. A steady increase in female voter participation has been observed across India, wherein the sex ratio of voters (number of female voters vis-à-vis male) has increased from 715 in the 1960s to 883 in the 2000s. Our studies have shown that women are more likely to contest elections in states with a skewed gender ratio. In the case of more developed states, they seek representation through voting leading to an increase in voter participation.

The situation can be rectified by providing focused reservation for those constituencies with a skewed sex ratio. Reducing the entry costs (largely non-pecuniary in nature – cultural barriers, lack of exposure) for women in order to create a pipeline of female leaders is another solution. These missing women, either as voters or leaders point to the gross negligence of women at all ages.

Read more at: Missing Women in Indian Democracy

Financial Inclusion

In the developing world, women have traditionally been the focus of efforts of financial inclusion. They have proved to be better borrowers (40 per cent of Grameen Bank’s clients were women in 1983. By 2000, the number had risen to 90 per cent) – largely attributed to the fact that they are less mobile as compared to men and more susceptible to peer pressure. However, institutions in microfinance are exposed to the trade-off between market growth and social development since having more female clients lead to the inevitable drip-down of social incentives. As an attempt to overcome this hurdle, a larger role can be played by donors with a gender driven agenda, for the financial inclusion sector will drive the idea further.

Gendered contextualisation of products is highly necessary for microfinance institutions (MFIs) – men and women do not ascribe to choices in a similar fashion. Trends emerging from prior research indicates that when health insurance coverage was held under the MFI sector, by both men and women, women benefited from the coverage only so far as they were the holders and not using spousal status (if their husbands were insured). Thus healthcare seeking behaviour becomes an important factor to be considered in insurance coverage under the MFIs.

The JAM trinity – Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhar, Mobile – can be used to improve financial inclusion from a gender perspective as well. The metrics to consider would be the number of Jan Dhan accounts held by women, percentage of women holding Aadhar cards and access to mobile connectivity for women.

Read more at: A trade-off between Growth and Social Objectives Exists for Microfinance Institutions

In terms of healthcare focusing on women, the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) and National Health Mission are vital to the policy landscape. The JSY has improved maternal healthcare in India through the emphasis on institutional deliveries. Increase of 22 per cent in deliveries in government hospitals, was mirrored by an 8 per cent decline in childbirth at private hospitals and a 16 per cent decline in childbirth at home. The National Health Mission’s ASHA led to greater awareness and education of pregnant women as well as an increase in institutional maternal and neonatal healthcare. Improved infrastructure for maternal and neo-natal has been observed in community hospitals, in addition to the introduction of ambulance services.

A gendered increase in seek care is observed with a large 13 per cent increase in the number of women who report being sick in the last 15 days, driving the overall reportage. Further, an eight per cent decline in rural women seeking private healthcare, has been reported, while a 58 per cent increase in women seeking hospitalization has been reported. Further disaggregated, the data shows a 75.7 per cent increase for rural women seeking healthcare. The overall increase in usage of public hospitals is almost entirely driven by rural women who saw an increase of 24.6 per cent in utilisation of public hospitals over the 10 years (2004-2014). Our results show that the JSY had a significant, positive impact on overall hospitalisation of women in India. It increased the probability of a woman being hospitalised by approximately 1.3 per cent.

Read more at: Health and Morbidity in India

The healthcare sector in India has largely focused on maternal healthcare for women. The importance of research on mental health has been ignored in policy discourse. The significant relationship that mental health bears on violence has also been explored in further research. Every fifth suicide in India is that of a housewife (18 per cent overall) – the reportage of suicide deaths has been most consistent among housewives as a category, than other categories. India is the country with the largest rate of female deaths due to ‘intentional violence’.

Our work on childhood violence shows that girls are twice more likely to face sexual violence than boys before the age of 18. Larger the population of educated females in the country, lesser is the incidence of childhood violence at home – including lesser violent discipline, physical punishment as well as psychological aggression. Additionally, the lifetime experience of sexual violence by girls is strongly correlated with the adolescent fertility rate in a country. Further, a strong relationship is observed between female experience of sexual violence and female labour force participation within a country. The results show that the higher the labour force participation by women in a country, the higher is the incidence of sexual violence against them. This could be indicative of adverse working conditions within labour markets, and the difficulty of access to labour markets by young women in a country.

• Over the Past two decades, every fifth suicide in India is by a housewife
• What Explains Childhood Violence

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Press release

Transforming MENtalities and Promoting Gender Equality in India

New Delhi, 18 December: Against the background of the global and pervasive epidemic of violence against women, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) organized a Partners’ Dialogue on Engaging Men and Boys for Gender Equality on 18 December 2019, at the UNESCO House, New Delhi.

The Dialogue witnessed the convergence of media, civil society organizations, donor agencies, bi-lateral and multi-lateral organizations, research institutions, and the private sector to discuss the challenges of addressing gender based violence in India and share lessons on engaging men and boys to work for Sustainable Development Goal 5 on Gender Equality.

A UNESCO preliminary stakeholders’ analysis presented during the Dialogue, identifies organizations and interventions working with men and boys across India to transform masculinities. The non-exhaustive analysis highlights the positive impact of campaigns like HeForShe (UnWomen), Mardon Waali Baat (The YP Foundation) and Bell Bajao (Breakthrough India), among many others. This analysis underscores the need for engagement with boys and men to eradicate gender based violence in India. The report further states that the social development ecosystem needs to prioritize the transformation of mentalities among boys and men.

The Dialogue began with academics and thought leaders deliberating on the historical roots and conceptualization of masculinities (i.e. what it is to be a man in a given society), in India. A major barrier highlighted during the dialogue was lack of awareness on these issues together with the lack of alternative models for what it is to be a man, to counter balance the hegemonic or prevailing conception of masculinities, which contribute to gender inequality or violence against women.

Subsequently, civil society and research organizations like the YP Foundation and The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) presented findings of interventions that worked with men to address gender based violence and masculinities. The role of the private sector, multi-lateral bodies and national policy frameworks, was discussed in the final session of the day. 

The Dialogue concluded with the stakeholders identifying priority areas such as educational reforms, shifts in societal values and the role of community leaders. These thus delineates the path to move towards a society where men at the same time do not see their self-realization hindered by stereotypes or social constraints, and are empowered to make positive contributions to a peaceful and prosperous world where men and women can equally thrive.

For further information contact:

Rekha Beri, Public Information ( r.beri@unesco.org ) Nitya Agarwal, Public Information( n.agarwal@unesco.org )

Related items

• Country page: India
• UNESCO Office in New Delhi
• SDG: SDG 5 - Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

This article is related to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals .

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• Published: 04 June 2020

Unfolding unpaid domestic work in India: women’s constraints, choices, and career

• Pushpendra Singh   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6900-1229 1 &
• Falguni Pattanaik 1  

Palgrave Communications volume  6 , Article number:  111 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Unpaid domestic work is an important aspect of productive activities and an indispensable factor that contributes to the well-being of household and economy. However, the predominance of women in domestic work and keeping them out of ‘economic activities’ put unpaid domestic work under the shadow of invisibility, outside the production boundaries, and further outside the purview of economic policy. The nature of women’s work has endured substantial alterations during the neo-liberal paradigm of Indian economy, and women’s participation in the labor force and workforce has declined significantly. To understand the status of women in the labor market, it is necessary to comprehend the nature of their unpaid work, which has significant impact on their work participation rate in the economy. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the magnitude and factors that influence the unpaid domestic work status of women in India. The findings of this study reveal that the intensity to be engaged in domestic work is high among women who are less educated and belong to the lower wealth quintile in society. Women are engaged in unpaid domestic work because of three factors—Constraints (social and religious), Choices (failure of market and states to provide essential provisioning), and Career (low opportunity cost of unpaid work in the market). Therefore, a holistical approach within the broader context of household, state, market, and society through a macro, meso, and micro interconnects has to be considered for changing women’s status in the economy.

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Introduction.

Unpaid work is an important aspect of economic activity and is indispensable for the well-being of individuals, households, and in fact, for the economy as a whole. Nevertheless, the economic analyses and policy formulations have neglected unpaid work be it in the form of economic production of goods for self-consumption or services enjoyed by others in the household. However, in the late 1960s attempts have been made by feminist economists to incorporate women’s domestic labor into the domain of economics and to analyze it as a form of work comparable to paid work (Mincer, 1962 ; Becker, 1965 ; Benston, 1969 ; Dalla Costa and James, 1975 ; Harrison, 1973 ; Gardiner et al., 1975 ). These analyses have a number of diverse aims, which are to recognize the domestic activities within the household carried out by women and value it, to elucidate that women are not present in the labor market not because of their personal choice but due to the economic disadvantage and low opportunity cost and so on (Folbre and Yoon, 2008 ). All these have a common objective, i.e., to give value and make visible the contribution of women in the household in the form of unpaid domestic activities by recognizing their effort as work.

The discourse on women’s unpaid work is exclusively pertinent in the Indian context because women’s labor force participation rate is very low and has seen a declining trend over the last decade probably because majority of them are moving into the domain of ‘domestic duties’ (Fletcher et al., 2017 ). In a country like India, merely 22 percent of women are engaged in workforce, and out of them, 70 percent are associated with the farm activities that are informal in nature with little or no economic remuneration or social recognition and almost zero access to social protection (Mehrotra et al., 2014 ). Most of women’s unpaid work is characterized as informal, invisible, and unrecognized in the economy. Further, the marginalization of women in workforce is intensified because of their socioeconomic position in society to carry out unpaid household activities in the family in the form of cooking, cleaning, fetching food, water, and firewood and giving care (Crow and McPike, 2009 ; Patel et al., 2016 ). Furthermore, the burden of unpaid work is fortified by the lack of adequate public provisioning in critical sectors, such as energy, health, water and sanitation, food security, and livelihoods (Hirway, 2015 ). On an average, across the globe, men spent 83 min in unpaid domestic work while women spent 265 min, i.e., more than three times the time spent by men. However, in India, women spend around 297 min, whereas only 31 min are spend by men in domestic work (Addati et al., 2018 ). This gender segregation in unpaid domestic duties reflects a set of social norms and perceptions regarding a “natural” household division of labor and the macroeconomic policies and strategies that do not acknowledge the existence of unpaid domestic work, rather intensify the increase of the burden in the economy (Dong and An, 2015 ).

Consequently, to understand women’s unpaid work in a developing country like India, there is need of analyzing the complex paid–unpaid scale at numerous interrelated levels. The goal of this study is to understand the dynamics of unpaid domestic work by reviewing the existing literature on women’s disproportionate share of unpaid work. The objective is to perceive the underlying factors responsible for unpaid domestic work in the presence or absence of enabling conditions, such as societal norms, caste, work condition, educational status, economic status, type of domestic works, and the allocation of time among a range of unpaid activities. The questions that motivated the exploration of the dynamics of women labor in relation to unpaid domestic work status in India are the following: What exactly is unpaid domestic work and its quantum? What are the causes of women to be engaged in unpaid domestic work, and why is it not shrinking as prefigured by standard theories of economic development? Is the issue of women’s unpaid domestic work being a matter of decision, choice, or constraint?

The study consists of six sections, including the “Introduction”. A brief review of the literature on the issue of unpaid domestic work as a matter of constraint, choice, and career for women has been summarized under section “Unpaid work: theoretical underpins and empirical perspective”. The data source, concept, and the methodology of the study are discussed in section “Concepts, database, and methodology”. The magnitude of unpaid domestic work and the reason behind its increase among women along with assessing the relative contributions of various dimensions in India (socio-economic and demographic) have been discussed in section “The magnitude of women unpaid domestic activity in India”. The consequences of rising unpaid domestic work have been assessed and discussed in section “Assessment of the relative contributions of factors affecting women in domestic duties”. Further, in this section of study shows an association between unpaid domestic work and social status, especially for women having low income, low educational status, and belonging to a marginal section of the society. Finally, section “Conclusion” concludes by pulling together all the threads and summarizing the main findings and policy messages.

Unpaid work: theoretical underpins and empirical perspectives

‘Unpaid Work’ has not been acknowledged as a part of the mainstream economy under different economic theories. Both the Classical and Neo-classical economists have considered unpaid work not as an economic good or market good thereby keeping it outside the production frontier. Furthermore, while compiling national income accounts, Kuznets ( 1948 ) also kept unpaid work outside the purview of national income, as it is part of “housewives’ production” and is therefore not a part of the economy. However, in the 1960s, feminists (Benston, 1969 ; Dalla Costa and James, 1975 ; Oakley, 1974 ) perceived that much of the time spent by women on domestic activities is related to “work” and not leisure. In the same time, mainstream economists commenced to augment the conceptions of “work” for inclusion of household activities/work (Mincer, 1962 ; Becker, 1965 ; Harrison, 1973 ; Gardiner et al., 1975 ). Historically, feminism epitomizes different stages in the process of the breakdown of the sexual division of labor by calling housework as “work”. The sexual division of labor is the division of economic and social activities between the sexes. The process of the breakdown of the sexual division of labor can be explained in three stages, i.e., “gender polarization”, “gender freedom”, and “gender integration” (Matthaei, 2001 ). In the stage of gender polarization, the division of labor is rigid, where paid work is assigned to men and unpaid work in the household to women (Gilman, 1998 ; Cott, 1997 ; Hartmann, 1976 ; Dubbert, 1979 ; Cooper et al., 2013 ). In the second stage of gender freedom, women enter into paid work along with unpaid work. During the early 1970s, feminists focused on the critique of rigid gender roles and claimed that men and women are equal in their abilities, therefore, they should get equal opportunities to work in the paid work previously reserved for men (Kessler-Harris, 1987 ; Williams, 2001 ). In the third stage, gender integration, both men and women begin to endeavor for integrating paid and unpaid work (Williams, 2001 ). In this integrative process, these stages are interlinked with each other. The forces instigating the rise and fall of each stage are complex. The timeline movement of this sexual division of labor from one stage to another will vary for different economies because it is influenced by race, class, ethnicity, transfer of technology, capitalist competition, etc. (Amott and Matthaei, 1996 ).

Over a period of time, attempts have been made to incorporate women’s domestic labor into the domain of economics as well as to analyze it as a form of work comparable with paid work. Considering that domestic activities constituted a form of “work”, the three different facets having their own insinuation for the position of women’s work in the household have been observed. First, household works take time and energy for a purpose and therefore have an opportunity cost, which encourages recognition of these activities as works. Second, women doing housework contribute to the division of labor both at the household and at the societal levels; hence, their work must be reduced. Third, domestic work is separable from the worker and could be done by others; therefore, unpaid domestic work should be redistributed between men and women. The triple “R” (recognition, reduction, and redistribution) approach attempts to integrate unpaid work into the mainstream economy by reducing it and by re-organizing it between the paid and unpaid work (Elson, 2017 ). Institutions such as state, market, society should work in a comprehensive manner to ‘recognize’, ‘reduce’ and ‘redistribute’ the burden of unpaid work of women within the household.

The sustainable development goals (SDG) recognize the importance of unpaid care and domestic work through public services, infrastructure, and social protection policies as well as shared responsibility within the household (Target 5.4). Therefore, by performing these unpaid works, women subsidize the market and also reduce the burden of the State (Hirway, 2015 ). However, much of women’s unpaid work is unrecognized, unreported, and underestimated by the family, market, and state regardless of the benefits relished by these institutions. Furthermore, neo-liberal macroeconomic policies have been formulated without recognizing, reducing, and redistributing unpaid work in the economy not only to increase forfeit on women but also to have an adverse impact on the economic development (Hirway, 2005 ; Elson, 2017 ; Folbre and Yoon, 2008 ). This lack of recognition increases hierarchy in gender relations and gender inequalities in the family as well as in the economy.

Unpaid domestic work: women’s constraints, choices, and career

Most of the unpaid work is not a matter of choice for women; rather, it is a constraint by society and patriarchal norms that women are expected to carry responsibility for work at home. It impedes entry into the labor market and restricts women’s income and earning potential (Kabeer, 2012 ). Therefore, it costs the loss of income and financial independence for women. Further, the inadequate decent employment opportunity in paid work for women increases the incidence of unpaid works and reduces the opportunity cost (Maloney, 2004 ; Razavi, 2007 ). Therefore, low female participation acts as disincentives for the uptake of education and skill and augments their disadvantages in the labor market and reinforces the gender division of labor (Kingdon, 1998 ). The demographic factors, mainly fertility rates and family structure and composition, play crucial role in determining the status of women as unpaid workers (Aguirre et al., 2012 ; Grimshaw and Rubery, 2015 ). However, access to the basic infrastructure, especially safe water, sanitation, energy for lighting and fuel, transport and childcare have strong influence on the time spent for unpaid work. Moreover, the failure of state to provide alternatives for care and domestic assistance increases the burden of unpaid work, which leads to restraining women’s choices for paid work, as it is expected that they have to provide this unpaid work (Neff et al., 2012 ; Das et al., 2015 ). Further, the endorsed roles in unpaid work constrain their choice of paid works, such as self-employment, home-based or part-time; casual, irregular, seasonal, and in the informal sector because these types of work provide poor remuneration without any kind of social security (Budlender, 2004 ; Maloney, 2004 ; Razavi, 2007 ; Kabeer, 2012 ). Furthermore, the low opportunity cost for unpaid work is reflected in the market, and paid domestic workers have experiences low status, low wages without any social security (Fig. 1 ).

Conceptual framework on women in domestic work—constraints, choices, and career: interconnection among macro, meso, and micro determinants.

In Indian context, the women’s movement is centuries older than the modern feminism debate of gender equality (Pande, 2018 ). However, it has initiated with the religious equality shifted in the period of 1970s with the ideas of women scholars (GoI, 1974 ; Bhatt, 1988 ) those started questioning the development from gender perspectives, intersectionality and power inequality. Although, gender equality has not fully achieved either at the religious or socio-economic sphere but the significance of their struggle cannot be neglected in the contemporary labor market (Esquivel et al., 2008 ; Antonopoulos and Hirway, 2010 ; IMF, 2013 ). It has been observed that the sexual division of labor pushes women to their domestic duties and undervalued household work. Therefore, categorically women are laid into margins of the society through the limitization of their role within the household (Jain, 1996 ; Sengupta, 2019 ). The social margins always haunted women in the economic and political sphere. Hence, in Indian social system, there are lack of agencies for women to access the labor market. Consequently, Omvedt ( 1987 ) discussed the prohibition of women in politics also leads to exclusion from productive work and property rights in society. The women representation in parliament is very much limited and the chances of the women contestants depends on the circumstantial win of the political organization (Jain, 2006 ; Allendorf, 2012 ). Thus, there is a systematic exclusion of women from the parliament has restricted their political agency to bring any protective labor legislation for unpaid workers.

Further, societal norms play a crucial role in women’s work status and reduce participation in paid work (Elson, 1999 ; Das, 2006 ), which is further interceded through religion and caste (Eswaran et al., 2013 ). Therefore, women as the unpaid domestic workers become an indispensable reference point in the above said discussion as per the concept of intersectionality, which is used to describe the way in which caste, class, religion, social stigmas, and patriarchal norms generate discrimination, inequalities, and disempowerment. On the one hand, Indian households often require women to prioritize domestic work and they are also explicitly constrained by marriage, religion, caste, and economic class. However, on the other hand, they face legal, normative, and economic constraints to get paid work. The predominance of gender-biased views regarding women’s roles in the household, economy, society, and political landscape of the country are the major impediments in changing the working status of women.

Furthermore, the state provides public provisioning (i.e., the level and quality of basic infrastructure especially water, sanitation, energy for lighting and fuel, transport, and childcare); however, it is very poor in quality and has strong influence on the time spent for unpaid work (Razavi, 2007 ; Budlender, 2010 ). Here, the existing discourse on unpaid work reveals that though attention has been given to understand, conceptualize, measure, and evaluate its link with various aspects of women’s lives including employment, more action is required in the form of policy framework to expand women’s opportunities, choices, and freedoms, and to interconnect the dimensions of unpaid work that need to be Recognize, Reduce, and Redistribute (Three ‘R’ approach) in the economy. Therefore, the aim of the study is to assess the quantum of unpaid domestic work as well as to ascertain the multiple factors (i.e., educational status, economic status, type of domestic works, and caste) accountable for the growth of unpaid workers and to further understand the dynamics, labor market performance and institutional settings, structural characteristics and their interactions in the country.

Concepts, database, and methodology

Defining unpaid work.

Unpaid work can be distinguished into a range of activities (Kabeer, 2008 ; Antonopoulos, 2009 ). Unpaid services provided for the maintenance and care of households are considered as unpaid domestic work. Unpaid household work has three components: (i) household maintenance including cooking, cleaning, and shopping; (ii) care of persons living in the house, such as looking after children, the elderly, sick, disabled, or simply other adults requiring care; and (iii) voluntary services or services rendered free to other households or the community. Despite its critical role in the sustenance of society, unpaid household work is considered Non-System of National Accounts (SNA) or Extended SNA (ESNA) work (SNA, 1993 ). Unpaid household work performed mainly by unpaid workers, overwhelmingly women, are thus rendered invisible in the official statistical systems; and, consequently out of the ambit, until the recent change of the national and international development policy (Antonopoulos and Hirway, 2010 ; Hirway, 2015 ).

The Indian scenario is somewhat different. The Indian Central Statistical Organization (CSO) does not include the processing of primary goods and collection of free goods in the computation of India’s GDP, which means that workers engaged in these activities, mostly women, are excluded from the estimated workforce of the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) and the Population Census. The NSSO placed them under Codes 92 and 93, i.e., engaged in domestic duties and allied activities (Table 1 ) (NSSO, 1997 , 2000 , 2007 , 2014 ). Being clubbed with unpaid household workers, these SNA women workers are denied official recognition as workers, and hence, they have also remained invisible and excluded from Indian development policy. In recognition of the Indian situation, the report of the sub-committee about a system of Indian National Accounts (Government of India, 2015 ) includes unpaid SNA as well as unpaid household workers in its ambit, thereby treating both as part of the continuum of women’s work. In case of necessity, the unpaid household discourse is extended to include unpaid SNA work/workers.

Data source

To accomplish the objectives, the data from various sources both at the micro and macro levels were utilized in this study. The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) conducts a nationwide survey on the key indicators of the labor market, i.e., labor force and workforce participation rate according to the age group, level of schooling, gender perspective, unemployment rate, wages of employees, the extent of domestic duty, etc., in India. This study has considered the data on domestic duties of the 50th round (July 1993–June 1993), 55th round (July 1999–June 2000), 61st round (July 2004–June 2005), and 68th round (July 2011–June 2012) using a schedule of inquiry (Schedule 10) from all-India household survey on the subject of employment and unemployment (EU) in India. The employment and unemployment (EUS) data were collected on the basis of person’s activity, which included workers seeking/available for work as well as those who are out from the labor force; and further a set of questions was put to all the individual of the households engaged in the domestic duties. Moreover, this study considered only the information of domestic duties collected under the aspects related to “carrying on domestic duties only, (code-92)” and “carrying domestic duties along with being involved in the free collection of goods (roots, cattle feed, vegetables, firewood, etc.), weaving, sewing, tailoring, etc. for household purpose (code-93)”. The participation in domestic duties were classified in term of their willingness to accept work in household, nature of duties, and kind of domestic responsibilities (Table 1 ). However, the follow-up questions asked in the NSSO ( 1997 , 2000 , 2007 , 2014 ) Survey (under status code 92 or 93) focused on the various unpaid activities, wherein mostly women are engaged (Maintenance of garden, orchards, etc.; Work in HH. poultry, dairy, etc.; Free collection of fruits and vegetables, etc.; Free collection of fire wood, etc.; Preparing cow dung cakes; Sewing, Tailoring, etc.; Free tutoring of own/others’ children; Bringing water from outside HH. Premises); further women also performed the domestic duties—outside the home (see Supplementary Table S1 ).

Statistical analysis

To estimate the magnitude of an unpaid domestic worker in India, we considered women age to be 15+ years at the aggregate level and at the state level. Thus, the following method was employed in this study:

Paid worker

‘Paid work’ covers full-time and part-time employment such as who are self-employed, employer, regular salaried, and casual wage labor/other and getting remuneration for their work. Therefore,

Unpaid home-based worker (UHBW)

The unpaid home-based workers refers to those who worked as a helper in the household (hh) enterprise and get no remuneration for their work

Unpaid domestic worker

The unpaid domestic workers are mainly women who attended domestic duties only and are engaged in household use work without remunerations

In order to explore the dynamics involved in the paid and unpaid work; the socio-economic and demographic characteristics (like household consumption expenditure on monthly basis in quintiles, location in terms of urban/rural, education status, age, caste, religion, etc.) of the women performing the domestic duties were examined. To observe factors influencing women unpaid activities, the study applied the logistic regression. The logistic regression is normally used to estimate the probability of being unpaid domestic workers (Cerrutti, 2000 ). The benefit of logistic regression is that it needs no assumption for the distribution of the independent variables.

In this study, the independent variables comprised both the numerical and nominal measures, and the outcome variables were binary or dichotomous. The distribution of the predictor variables was checked and interpreted with the odds ratios.

The binary response variable considered as

and the set of explanatory variables for each individual was related to a set of categorical predictors (age, location in terms of urban/rural, education status, caste, economic status, religion, etc.). Further, the logistic function was depicted as

The probability of women in unpaid activities has been represented as π i . The parameter β 0 estimated the log odds of women unpaid activities for the reference group, and the parameter β estimated with maximum likelihood the differential log odds of unpaid women activities, which is associated with the predictor X , as compared to the reference group, and odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) has been considered.

The magnitude of women unpaid domestic activity in India

Despite the debate on gender inequality in SDG, women hold the principal position of the caregiver and carry out domestic work in the household. Their care and homemaking works are often ignored, undervalued, and recognized as unskilled work. Domestic ‘unpaid’ work involves performing routine household odd jobs such as cooking, cleaning, fetching food, collecting water, and firewood among others. The share of unpaid domestic work among women in India is high and gradually increasing; it also includes caring for the household members. Furthermore, women participation in paid work has declined by 11.1 percent, whereas, the magnitude of unpaid domestic work has increased by 12.2 percent from 1992–93 to 2011–12 in India (Fig. 2 ). Though family members make different contributions to ensure smooth functioning of the household, most of the domestic work is being carried out by women. Moreover, the results indicated that 60.9 percent of women population is engaged in unpaid domestic work in 2011–12 compared to 48.8 percent in 1993–94, and the significant increment is evident among both the rural and urban women engaged in unpaid domestic work. Nearly, 63.7 percent of urban women are engaged in unpaid domestic work in 2011–12 compared to 53.3 percent in 1993–94, whereas, 59.7 percent of rural women are engaged in unpaid domestic work in 2011–12 compared to 46.5 percent in 1993–94 (see Supplementary Table S2 ).

Percentage distribution of women engaged in paid, homebased, and unpaid activities.

It has been observed that the participation of women in unpaid domestic work is quite high in the urban areas compared to the rural areas and the burden of domestic duties is increasing with the passage of time in both the sectors. The reason is probably the limited and poorly remunerated employment opportunities for women, which have reduced the opportunity cost of unpaid work mostly in the urban areas. The low participation of women in unpaid domestic work in rural areas may be because most of the women in the rural area are engaged in agriculture, which is generally informal. It is an alarming indicator of the ‘jobless formal sector’, which is a matter of serious concern for ‘decent work condition’ and has serious consequences on poverty reduction, women empowerment, decent education for the girl child, etc. However, there is a huge gender gap in the unpaid domestic work in India may be because of social norms (gender stereotype work), demographic factors like fertility rates, family structure and composition, access to basic infrastructure/services (collecting water, and firewood), etc. Therefore, for a deeper understanding of the dynamics of labor market, there is need for further analysis of different dimensions like age distribution, educational attainment, marital status, wealth distribution, etc., of women engaged in unpaid domestic work in India.

Taxonomy of women unpaid domestic workers in India: socio-economic and demographic dimensions

Though the female populace constitutes half of the total population, women are still invisible in their contribution toward macroeconomics in terms of their labor market representation and their share in economic productivity. It indicates that women contribute less than their potential to the economy (Hirway, 2015 ; Addati et al., 2018 ) because a significant segment of women is engaged in unpaid work. Thus, this study has explored the burden of unpaid domestic activities on women as per their socio-economic and demographic characteristic (Table 2 ). Age could be considered as indicators of women’s experiences over the years and their social contracts in the form of marriage, motherhood, etc., as well as it gives a notion of the women’s work participation opportunities in the economic activities. Therefore, the incidence of unpaid domestic activities is much higher in the 25–34 age group, which is also evident through the results. Across the Indian households, it is the social custom that women must take care of their families; hence, most of the women after marriage adopt home care as the permanent unpaid job. Further, the patriarchal tendency of naming a woman as a housewife is very common among the Indian households (Dube, 1998 ), which restricts her decision about entering the economic activities in the labor market, thereby legitimizing unpaid domestic duty as the destiny (Chakravarti, 1993 ).

Therefore, education plays a significant role in bringing changes in these gendered norms of a society that have significant impact on women’s work status (Marphatia and Moussié, 2013 ). Hence, the results of this study revealed that 60.6 percent of illiterate women are engaged in unpaid domestic work in 2011–12. In practice, studies show that girls performing high proportion of domestic work have low level of schooling (Dong and An, 2015 ). However, it is interesting to note that the participation rate of women in unpaid domestic work between intermediary and graduate level of education has increased significantly. Nearly 57.8 percent of women have completed their intermediary level of education and above, but are engaged in unpaid domestic work. In urban areas, 62.1 and 56.8 percent of women having intermediary and graduate level of education are engaged in unpaid domestic work, whereas, in rural areas the percentage is 54.8 and 50.9, respectively. The low opportunity cost of unpaid work in a market economy, mostly in urban areas, restricts the choice of women to go for paid work. However, it has been observed that women having technical education are less employed in unpaid work. It seems that vocational education plays a potentially empowering role in the process of moving from an unpaid status to paid working status. Furthermore, research also shows the influence of castes and religious groups on the work status of girls and women. In specific religious communities like Hindus and Muslims, the unjust traditions, norms, and practices create a distinct division of labor between women and men, and further disseminate the work status of women as an unpaid domestic worker. However, it has been observed that a woman’s ability to participate in the labor force has been affected by their affiliation to certain social groups. Women from marginalized communities, i.e., schedule caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) are supposed to have lower levels of income as compared to other groups (Singh and Pattanaik, 2020 ), which creates a negative effect on women’s participation in the labor market compared to other backward class (OBC)/others. In STs and SCs communities, women are not discriminated on the basis of the division of labor (Neetha, 2010 ) because along with domestic works, women also engage in small-scale subsistence farming and sometimes as paid agricultural labor.

The associations between unpaid work and living standards have been largely ignored (Hirway, 2015 ). Income distribution, size of land holding, and employment status could be significant parameters to understand women’s work status in their household. During the study period, it has been observed that women belonging to the poorest and highest wealth quantiles show more engagement in the unpaid activities than women belonging to the middle wealth quantiles household. The effect of rising household income becomes a pull factor behind changing the work status of women in the household (Kambhampati, 2009 ). A high percentage of women are engaged in unpaid domestic work in the households having small and marginal land holdings (<0.004 and 0.005–0.0400 ha).

Furthermore, the structural transformation and automation of agriculture have led to the mechanization of work, which has pushed women to exit from farm activities, especially from the middle and higher large size of landholding and to engage in unpaid activities (Schultz, 1990 ; Mehrotra et al., 2012 ). Thus, it shows that the unpaid domestic activities are more prevalent in the two extreme strata of the economy (the poorest and highest wealth quantiles, smallest and largest size of the land holdings of the household). Further, according to the household employment status, the percentage of women engaged in unpaid activities are higher in the self-employed household (62.1 percent) and household of casual laborers (58.1 percent), respectively, in 2011–12.

Furthermore, the most important indicator of regional imbalance in unpaid domestic duties highlights the opportunities available for women human resources in specific regions. The eastern region (73.4 percent) has higher women domestic workers for household work followed by the central region (64.8 percent) in 2011–12. The perusal of Table S4 in the supplementary reveals a dramatic increase in the domestic duties from 48.8 percent to 60.9 percent between 1993–94 and 2011–12 for India as a whole; a similar increase has been witnessed in each of the states. Among the eastern states, Bihar has shown the highest increase in the unpaid domestic duties from 2004–05 (76.4 percent) to 2011–12 (81.5 percent) followed by the northern states Punjab and Haryana. The inter-state variation in the burden of unpaid work is glaring in the southern states compared to northern states. Broadly, in the intra-state context, the socio-cultural norms are likely to determine women economic status, which indicates that the survival of the household is unimaginable without the contribution of women as unpaid domestic workers. Therefore, it can be inferred that increase in the education level of women, increase in family income, large size of land holdings, and regular employment status of the household can be considered as positive parameters for changing women’s work status because with a better standard of living and higher income level, the household can afford care services, which in turn will give choices to the women to redistribute their time both at home as well as at the workplace.

Whys and wherefores: women in domestic work—constraints, choices, and career

A number of inquisitions have been put to the household member engaged in unpaid domestic work for understanding the prospects of spending Most of their time on domestic duties (MTDD). The estimates of this study revealed that 91.9 percent of women are required to spend most of their time on unpaid domestic activities in 2011–12 compared to 86.9 percent in 1993–94 (Table 3 ), which highlights that the proportion of women engaged in domestic duties has increased. It has been observed that in 2011–12, 61.3 percent of women reported that they have to carry domestic work because there is ‘no other member to carry out the domestic duties’, 15.3 percent reported that they have to carry the domestic work ‘for social and/or religious constraints’, 8.8 percent reported that they ‘cannot afford hired help’, and 14.6 percent gave some ‘other reasons’. Hence, the theoretical debate surrounding the triple “R” approach of unpaid work (Elson, 2017 )— neither of redistribution, recognition, reduction on their own are means of achieving a high status for women in the economy is possible in practice—because women’s current low status in the Indian economy is linked to their disproportionate share of unpaid care work and lack of access to paid employment. Within the household, the ‘redistribution’ of unpaid work requires change in the prevailing patriarchal norms and customs (Kabeer, 1994 ; Fraser, 2001 ; Fletcher et al., 2017 ). Further, in Indian society, the ‘recognition’ of women’s roles in nourishing families is often denied and undervalued (Palriwala and Neetha, 2011 ).

Moreover, for the ‘reduction’ in unpaid work to diminish drudgery as well as stress of unpaid workers, the state has also failed to make accessible basic infrastructural support (e.g., providing water supply, fuel, transport, caregiving institutions, etc.) to the household. Indian women are engaged in unpaid activities not by choice; rather they are constrained because institutions (both market and state) have failed to create alternatives. While examining the proportions of women engaged in MTDD across age group, it has been observed that the proportion is higher among all the age groups, but for the age group 25–34, it has increased significantly during the study period (1993–94 to 2011–12), i.e., from 88.8 percent to 94.1 percent. It is the time of life transition for women belonging to the age group 25–34, specifically because it is their age of marriage, childbearing, and careers mobility, which shapes the distribution of unpaid domestic work in households (McMullin, 2005 ). Further, the proportion of women engaged in MTDD is significantly high irrespective of their educational status and wealth distribution of the household (see Supplementary Table S3 ).

Various other activities performed by women along with unpaid domestic duties

The focus of analysis in this section is to examine the extra work (outside home) along with the domestic duties and distribution patterns of women engaged in MTDD. The activities listed in Table 4 fall within the ‘Unpaid Work’ according to Indian System of National Accounts (ISNA), and if women perform these activities, they are not considered as worker. Though the results revealed that the participation of women in all the specified domestic unpaid activities has declined over the study period, huge variation has been observed across the rural and urban sectors.

It has been reported that in 2011–12, 43.5 percent women are engaged in the collection of free firewood in rural areas compared to 5.3 percent in urban areas; 41.1 percent women are engaged in preparing cow dung cakes in rural areas compared to 5.3 percent in urban areas; and 30.5 percent women are engaged in bringing water from outside household premises in rural areas compared to 9.6 percent in urban areas.

This seems that the state institution has failed to provide basic infrastructure facilities (i.e., cooking fuel, drinking water) at the doorstep of the household. Furthermore, it has been reported that 27.6 percent women are engaged in sewing and tailoring activities in rural areas compared to 23.6 percent in urban areas and 23.5 percent women are engaged in the maintenance of kitchen and garden within household premises in rural areas compared to 7.8 percent in urban areas in 2011–12. Women devote substantial time to productive unpaid activities like cooking, cleaning, caring, gardening, etc. Likewise, 21.6 percent women are engaged in poultry and dairy work, and 21.6 percent women are engaged in the free collection of fruits and vegetables in rural areas in 2011–12. These unpaid activities represent implicit income because they increase the overall consumption of goods and services (Becker, 1965 ), but in India, these activities are done by women in the form of non-market services.

Most of the rural women come from small peasant family that owns less than an acre of land for cultivation or from a landless family who often depends on the feudal lords for work and wage. The rural women are generally illiterate and have not traveled more than 20 miles from her birthplace. Since her birth; she has been taught that she will get married and serve her husband. The rural women have multiple pre-define traditional work schedule, as she has to perform all the household responsibilities such as collecting firewood, washing, cultivating, and husbandry. In this section, we will discuss women’s drudgery in their engagement in domestic duties. She has to wake up early and start washing dishes and cleaning the house while also taking care of her family and whims of her husband. She has to then rush to their field for work in the hot sun. In the afternoon, i.e., during lunchtime at the workplace, she does not take rest; rather she indulges in collecting some grass and firewood for the cooking at home in the evening. After coming back from work in the evening, she has to cook for her family.

The SDG target 7.1 makes promises to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services for every household by 2030. According to the Census ( 2011 ), there are 63 percent of rural households that use firewood, 23 percent use cow dung cakes, and 11 percent use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as primary cooking fuel. In rural households, women have to bear cooking responsibilities. For the poor households, women also have to bear the responsibility of procuring fuel for cooking, which means to cook she needs fuel; either from firewood or cow-dug cakes. To collect the firewood, she has to walk several miles every day, and for cow dung, she must feed the cow for which she must collect suitable grasses regularly, which also needs her to walk several miles. These rural women spend about 4–5 h a day to collect fuel needed for cooking (Nagbrahmam and Sambrani, 1983 ). The irony is that she has to perform multiple tasks at a time such as while cooking, she has to breastfeed one child. Suppose she fails to perform any of the tasks or cannot perform them well, she is abused by her husband. Women have not been able to change their plight in the last thousands of years (Banerjee et al., 2018 ; Baquié and Urpelainen, 2017 ).

After the collection of fuel for cooking, she has to cook food for which she needs water, and to collect water she has to again walk several miles on foot. In some cases, she or her children have to fetch water from beyond the premises of the household, and it takes up to six trips a day to gather and transport water. Women carry buckets on their heads and walk daily around two/three miles on average for collecting water (Crow and McPike, 2009 ). It is also common for the rural girl child to help her mother in these domestic duties; hence, she has to drop her schooling. It is a great loss of productive hours for women who spend their time to fetch water, which in turn reduces their ability to contribute to their household income. The lack of water availability for sanitation in schools is also the reason behind most of the rural girl child not being able to go to school. The problem becomes more severe once a girl starts menstruation; it is very difficult and embarrassing for her to take care of herself in absence for water and toilet for sanitation. Further, animal husbandry in rural areas is extremely desirable to supplement household income. Therefore, women have to perform animal feeding, breeding, milking, caring of newborn calves, sick animals, etc., which contribute to the major burden of livestock management (Shiva, 1991 ). Apart from this, women also have to manage and arrange the supply of feed and fodder for the cattle (Patel et al., 2016 ). The poultry farming is also associated with husbandry, which is traditional and old age practice of the under privileged society, particularly in the hilly rural areas. The care of poultry birds and eggs are also the duty of women.

We observed a large degree of the feminization of all activities (cultivation, animal husbandry, collection of fodder, water, maintenance and management of the household, travel and time for public provisioning and care) in all sectors (rural and urban). In a country like India, the dominance of unpaid work has been observed because the increasing market economy has failed to recognize the existence of unpaid work, which is further aggravated by the non-fulfillment of the essential provisionings and poor implementation of welfare schemes by the state.

Assessment of the relative contributions of factors affecting women in domestic duties

Considering the magnitude and distribution patterns of women engaged in unpaid domestic activities across several socio-economic determinants, it is indispensable to comprehend the degree to which each of these determinants has influenced the domestic work status of women in different phases. To capture the combined effects of these determinants, the dynamics of the work status of women (unpaid domestic work) over time have been explored (Table 5 ) by applying logistic regression, which is useful to predict the likelihood of women’s work status related to unpaid domestic work. It has been observed that the engagement of urban women in unpaid domestic work is 37 percent higher than that of their rural counterparts in 2012. However, these rural–urban differences have declined over the period. The inordinate burden of domestic work has increased in urban areas owing to consistent dropping out of jobs. While examining the contribution of the age group, it has been observed that, women belong to the age group 15–24 and 60+ have shown higher probability of being engaged in unpaid domestic activities compared to women of any other age group. The existing literature advocates that the increasing level of education among women will augment their participation in the paid work activities (Beneria and Sen, 1982 ; Goldin, 1994 ; Mammen and Paxson, 2000 ). However, this study divulges that there is a disproportionate share of unpaid domestic work and educational status of women.

Women with educational level less than intermediary are more vulnerable to be engaged in unpaid domestic work. There is a clear mismatch between skills accrued through formal education and skills required for getting a decent job in the labor market; hence, women have to perform unpaid domestic duties (Singh and Pattanaik, 2019 ). Likewise, technical education plays a significant role in the work status of women, and women with no technical education have higher (four times) probability to be engaged in unpaid domestic work compared to women having any form of technical education.

While examining social status, it has been observed that women belonging to OBC and other categories have higher (two times) likelihood to be engaged in unpaid domestic work compared to women belonging to SC and ST. However, it has been observed that owing to the strict social norms, Muslim women are more likely to be engaged as an unpaid domestic worker compared to women of other religions.

Furthermore, the occupational status and level of income of the household seem to be a major deciding factor for the work status of women. The economic growth has an inversely proportional relationship with unpaid domestic duty. Both land size and income level determine the economic standard of the household. It means that with increase in the household income, women are more likely to involve in unpaid domestic duty. However, it would be short-run, but the scenario can change in the long-run. It has been observed that the likelihood to be engaged in unpaid domestic work is higher among women belongs to richer wealth quintile. Hence, from the results, it is evident that the income of the household is more important for women to demand paid work and exit from unpaid domestic work (Singh and Pattanaik, 2019 ). Further, the study evaluates the concurrence in land size and domestic duty and observed that the increase in the landholding size of the household, increases the likelihood of unpaid activities among women. However, the likelihood of women to be engaged in unpaid domestic worker is higher by 62 percent in self-employed household as compare to regular wage earner in 2012. Furthermore, the increase in unpaid activities is more intense in different regions owing to the imbalance of socio-economic characteristics. Hence, women of the eastern region (four times) have higher likelihood of getting engaged in domestic duties followed by women of the central region (three times) in 2011–12, and similar trend is followed throughout the study period. Thus, the findings of this section have to be apprehended holistically from the point of view of vulnerability and well-being of women. The intensity of being engaged in domestic work is high among women with low education and those belonging to the lower wealth quintile in society. Further, dichotomies have also been observed, as the intensity of being engaged in domestic work among women is high among the high social class and households having high land holdings and well-established employment status. Thus, the fundamental discourse on unpaid domestic work in India is based on the intermixed role of ‘Three R’ approach—redistribution, recognition, and reduction.

The focus of this study is two-fold—one is to examine the magnitude and time distribution patterns of women engaged in unpaid domestic activities, and the other is to explore the factors affecting women work status as an unpaid domestic worker. The nature of women’s work has endured substantial alterations in the neo-liberal paradigm of Indian economy. The market orientation and withdrawal of state (declining investments in public provisioning) have adversely affected the lives and livelihood of women in India. The magnitude of unpaid domestic work has become even more arduous because Indian economy has neither been able to recognize nor able to reduce and redistribute unpaid domestic work in the society. The disproportionate share of domestic work among women is linked to the lack of access to paid employment and women’s low status (in terms of education and wealth) in society. From the Indian perspective, a significant number of women are engaged in unpaid domestic work because of three factors—Constraints (social and religious), Choices (failure of market and states to provide essential provisioning), and Career (low opportunity cost of unpaid work in the market). The ‘Three R’ approach toward unpaid domestic work should be considered for changing the work status of women (from Unpaid to Paid) in the economy, which will reduce the unpaid work among women. Hence, we are propositioning that by removing Constraints (social-stigmas and religious norms), creating better Choices (making market and states to provide essential provisioning, so that women can make a choice), and generating Career (better opportunity cost of unpaid work in the market), we will be able to change the economic status of women from Unpaid to Paid following the “Three R” approach (Reward, Recognition, and Reduction). Therefore, to achieve a more egalitarian economy for women, efforts have to be made holistically within the broader context of household, state, market, and society through macro, meso, and micro interconnections from several fronts, i.e., paradigm shift in social norms to change the status of women, increase educational status of women and girls, investment made by the state for essential public provisioning, and encourage job market.

Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, Government of India at National Data Archive, an online microdata repository, http://microdata.gov.in/nada43/index.php/catalog/central . For data access, registration with the website is the first step. All the steps of data access are elaborated in the following link http://microdata.gov.in/nada43/index.php/catalog/central .

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Singh, P., Pattanaik, F. Unfolding unpaid domestic work in India: women’s constraints, choices, and career. Palgrave Commun 6 , 111 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0488-2

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Blog Achieving gender equality in India: what works, and what doesn’t

Discrimination against women and girls is a pervasive and long-running phenomenon that characterises Indian society at every level.

India’s progress towards gender equality, measured by its position on rankings such as the Gender Development Index has been disappointing, despite fairly rapid rates of economic growth .

In the past decade, while Indian GDP has grown by around 6%, there has been a large decline in female labour force participation from 34% to 27%. The male-female wage gap has been stagnant at 50% (a recent survey finds a 27% gender pay gap in white-collar jobs).

Crimes against women show an upward trend , in particular brutal crimes such as rapes, dowry deaths, and honour killings. These trends are disturbing as a natural prediction would be that with growth comes education and prosperity, and a possible decline in adherence to traditional institutions and socially prescribed gender roles that hold women back.

A preference for sons

Cultural institutions in India, particularly those of patrilineality (inheritance through male descendants) and patrilocality (married couples living with or near the husband’s parents), play a central role in perpetuating gender inequality and ideas about gender-appropriate behaviour.

A culturally ingrained parental preference for sons - emanating from their importance as caregivers for parents in old age - is linked to poorer consequences for daughters.

The dowry system, involving a cash or in-kind payment from the bride’s family to the groom’s at the time of marriage, is another institution that disempowers women. The incidence of dowry payment, which is often a substantial part of a household’s income, has been steadily rising over time across all regions and socioeconomic classes.

This often results in dowry-related violence against women by their husbands and in-laws if the dowry is considered insufficient or as a way to demand more payments.

These practices create incentives for parents not to have girl children or to invest less in girls’ health and education. Such parental preferences are reflected in increasingly masculine sex ratios in India . In 2011, there were 919 girls under age six per 1000 boys, despite sex determination being outlawed in India.

This reinforces the inferior status of Indian women and puts them at risk of violence in their marital households. According to the National Family and Health Survey of 2005-06 , 37% of married women have been victims of physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their spouse.

Affirmative action

There is clearly a need for policy initiatives to empower women as gender disparities in India persist even against the backdrop of economic growth.

Current literature provides pointers from policy changes that have worked so far. One unique policy experiment in village-level governance that mandated one-third representation for women in positions of local leadership has shown promising results .

Evaluations of this affirmative action policy have found that in villages led by women, the preferences of female residents are better represented, and women are more confident in reporting crimes that earlier they may have considered too stigmatising to bring to attention.

Female leaders also serve as role models and raise educational and career aspirations for adolescent girls and their parents .

Behavioural studies find that while in the short run there is backlash by men as traditional gender roles are being challenged, the negative stereotype eventually disappears . This underscores the importance of sustained affirmative action as a way to reduce gender bias.

Another policy change aimed at equalising land inheritance rights between sons and daughters has been met with a more mixed response . While on the one hand, it led to an increase in educational attainment and age at marriage for daughters, on the other hand, it increased spousal conflict leading to more domestic violence.

Improvements in labour market prospects also have the potential to empower women. An influential randomisation study found that job recruiter visits to villages to provide information to young women led to positive effects on their labour market participation and enrolment in professional training.

This also led to an increase in age at marriage and childbearing, a drop in desired number of children, and an increase in school enrolment of younger girls not exposed to the programme.

Recent initiatives on training and recruiting young women from rural areas for factory-based jobs in cities provide economic independence and social autonomy that they were unaccustomed to in their parental homes.

Getting to parity

For India to maintain its position as a global growth leader, more concerted efforts at local and national levels, and by the private sector are needed to bring women to parity with men.

While increasing representation of women in the public spheres is important and can potentially be attained through some form of affirmative action, an attitudinal shift is essential for women to be considered as equal within their homes and in broader society.

Educating Indian children from an early age about the importance of gender equality could be a meaningful start in that direction.

This article was originally published on The Conversation . Read the original article .

November 2016

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Gender equality in India hit by illiteracy, child marriages and violence: a hurdle for sustainable development

Kishor parashramji brahmapurkar.

1 Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College, Jagdalpur, Bastar, 494001 Chhattisgarh, India

Introduction

Gender equality is fundamental to accelerate sustainable development. It is necessary to conduct gender analyses to identify sex and gender-based differences in health risks. This study aimed to find the gender equality in terms of illiteracy, child marriages and spousal violence among women based on data from National Family Health Survey 2015-16 (NFHS-4).

This was a descriptive analysis of secondary data of ever-married women onto reproductive age from 15 states and 3 UTs in India of the first phase of NFHS-4. Gender gap related to literacy and child marriage among urban and rural area was compared.

In rural area all states except Meghalaya and Sikkim had the significantly higher percentage of women's illiteracy as compared to male. Bihar and Madhya Pradesh had higher illiterate women, 53.7% and 48.6% as compared to male, 24.7% and 21.5% respectively (P < 0.000). Child marriages were found to be significantly higher in rural areas as compared to urban areas in four most populated states.

There is a gender gap between illiteracy with women more affected in rural areas with higher prevalence of child marriages and poor utilization of maternal health services. Also, violence against women is showing an upward trend with declining sex-ratio at birth.

Gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men-such as the norms, roles and relationships that exist between them [ 1 ]. Gender inequality limits access to quality health services and contributes to avoidable morbidity and mortality rates in women, also gender inequality is unacceptable [ 1 , 2 ]. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women requires that women are accorded rights equal to those of men (equality) and that women be able to enjoy all their rights in practice [ 3 ]. Realizing the significance of the issue, the policy makers have included the issue of gender equality as one among seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (Goal-5) [ 3 ]. Encouraging gender equality is fundamental to accelerating sustainable development [ 3 ]. Some of the elements of gender equality are to abolish all forms of violence against all women and girls along with all destructive practices, such as child marriage and guarantee worldwide access to reproductive health and reproductive rights [ 3 ]. Social determinants of health such as education and gender equality are significantly responsible for health-seeking behavior and overall health outcomes. It has been known that improved education, partly reproduced by higher literacy rates is associated with higher incomes and better health indicators such as lower infant mortality rates (IMRs) and lesser population growth rate. Education of families, particularly of women has a 'multiplier effect' on development [ 4 ]. Child marriage and adolescent pregnancy, gender-based violence are among the many barriers that stand in the way of woman's' fully exercising their right to education [ 4 ]. No education limits hopes, declines family income, diminishes health, puts women at risk of trafficked and exploitation and bounds the economic advancement of entire countries [ 5 ]. Education for girls and women is the single most successful way to progress the lives of individual families as well as to bring economic expansion to poor communities worldwide [ 5 ]. Globally 31 million girls are out of school and two-thirds of illiterate adults are women [ 6 ]. Poverty, adolescent pregnancy, child marriage and prejudiced gender norms are some of the reasons that prevent girls from going to school [ 6 ]. Globally 39000 child marriages (marriage before the age of 18) occur daily and it is more common to young girls [ 7 ]. Child marriages not only contribute to illiteracy but also have complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. These complications are the leading cause of death in young women aged 15-19 [ 7 ]. Child marriages also make girls more susceptible to intimate partner violence(IPV) [ 7 ]. Marrying girls less than 18 years old has been embedded in gender discrimination, cheering premature and uninterrupted child-bearing and giving the predilection for boys' education [ 8 ]. Current worldwide prevalence figures indicate that about 1 in 3 (35%) of women worldwide have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) [ 9 ]. Gender inequality and poor education are some of the reasons for IPV [ 9 ]. IPV can lead to unplanned pregnancies, induced abortions, gynecological problems and sexually transmitted infections [ 9 ]. It is necessary to disaggregate data and conduct gender analyses to identify sex and gender-based differences in health risks [ 1 ]. The overall aim of the study was to find the gender equality in terms of illiteracy, child marriages and spousal violence among women based on data from National Family Health Survey 2015-16 (NFHS-4).

Study design : The present study was a cross-sectional secondary data analysis of information that has been available from the first phase of National Family Health Survey 2015-16 (NFHS-4) [ 10 ]. NFHS-4, has given information on population, health and nutrition each State/Union Territory.

Setting : Primary data onto NFHS-4 had been collected from January 2015 to December 2015. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India assigned International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai as the nodal organization to conduct NFHS-4. In the first phase of NFHS-4, 15 states and 3 union Territories were covered (56% of total population). Fifteen States/Union Territories had been selected for study purpose was those, which were covered in first phase of NFHS-4; Maharashtra (MH), Bihar (BR), West Bengal (WB), Madhya Pradesh (MP), Tamil Nadu (TN), Karnataka (KA), Andhra Pradesh (AP), Telangana (TS), Assam (AS), Haryana (HR), Uttarakhand (UK), Tripura (TR), Meghalaya (ML), Manipur (MN) and Sikkim (SK). UTs were Goa (GA), Puducherry (PY) and Andaman and Nicobar (AN) [ 11 ].

Sample size : First phased of NFHS-4 had collected information about 2,91,431 households, 3,37,658 women and 48,342 men.

Variables : NFHS-4 had provided updates and evidence of developments in key population, health and nutrition indicators out of which literacy, child marriage; adolescent reproductive health, maternal health, domestic violence and sex-ratio had been included for the study purpose.

Data analysis : First the data for the above-mentioned variables of all States/UTs has been entered in Microsoft Office Excel worksheet and the gender gap for illiteracy was calculated using Chi-square test for urban and rural area. Then the prevalence of child marriages among girls was compared for area of residence (Urban versus Rural) and Chi-square value was calculated using Epi Info. For statistical tests, P < 0.05 was taken as the significant level. Data were then presented using tables, bar and line diagrams.

Ethical considerations : The study had utilized freely-available record available on the website of the following organization: the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4 [ 10 ], National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) [ 12 ] and Census 2011 [ 13 ]. Because publicly-available database was used in this analysis, no ethical approval was sought.

Definitions : Literate: a person that can read and write with understanding in any language [ 13 ]. Child marriage: according to the prohibition of child Marriage Act, 2006 a child is a male who has not completed twenty-one years of age and a female who has not completed eighteen years of age. Child marriage is a contract between any two people of which either one or both party are a child [ 14 ]. Full antenatal care was defined as at least four antenatal visits, at least one tetanus toxoid (TT) injection and iron-folic acid tablets or syrup took for 100 or more days [ 10 ] . Intimate partner violence refers to behavior by an intimate partner or ex-partner that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm, including physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviors [ 9 ].

Total population covered by phase I of NFHS-4 was 678.2 million over 15 states and 3 Union Territories (UTs).

Women's illiteracy (%) as compared to men's illiteracy (%) in urban and rural areas : Women's illiteracy in an urban area has been found to be significantly higher in 8 states and 2 UTs as compared to men's illiteracy and in the rural area; it was significantly higher in 13 states and 1 UT respectively ( Table 1 ). In an urban area, Bihar had a higher percentage of illiterate women (29.5%) as compared to men (11.2%), (P < 0.001), followed by Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh (MP). In the rural area, all states except Meghalaya and Sikkim had a significantly higher percentage of women's illiteracy as compared to male. Bihar and MP had higher illiterate women, 53.7% and 48.6% as compared to male, 24.7% and 21.5% respectively. (P < 0.000). Bihar and MP state with the population of total 176.7 million had higher women illiteracy in both urban and rural areas. This indicates gender inequality in education.

Distribution of states of India according to the gender gap in illiteracy among urban area as compared to rural area

Child marriages to women (%) in urban and rural areas : Child marriages to women were found to be significantly higher in rural areas as compared to urban areas in 4 most populated states (Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal and MP). West Bengal had a higher percentage of child marriages in both urban and rural area, 27.7% and 46.3% and the difference between urban and rural area was significant (P < 0.005) followed by Bihar, 26.9% and 40.9% of child marriages among urban and rural women respectively. (P < 0.026), though no statistically significant difference was observed in Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Tripura, the prevalence of child marriage among women was more than 20% in urban and more than 33% in rural areas of concerned states. The above findings point of the harmful practice of child marriages to women prevalent in most of the states and UTs of India. Goa was the only exception with child marriages significantly higher in an urban area as compared to a rural area as shown in Table 2 .

Child marriages of girls in rural and urban areas of some states and UTs of India

Reproductive health : Full Antenatal care (ANC) was lower in a rural area of states, Bihar (03%), followed by Tripura (6.8%) and MP (8.3%) as compared to the rural area of Tamil Nadu (43.8%). Also, full ANC coverage was found to be lower in an urban area of Bihar (6.6%), Tripura (9.8%), Uttarakhand (15.6%) and MP (19.5%) as compared to Telangana and Tamil Nadu with full ANC coverage of 47.7% and 46.3% respectively. Postnatal care (PNC) to mothers within 2 days of delivery was found lower in rural area of states with Bihar state in which only 41.1% of mothers received PNC from health personnel followed by Meghalaya (42.6%), Uttarakhand (49.1%) and MP (50.3%) as compared to better Post Natal Care in state of Telangana (79.1%) and Andhra Pradesh (77.8%) among states and 90.5% among UT (Goa).

Ever-married women that have ever experienced spousal violence (%) and adolescent pregnancy : The overall percentage of spousal violence among ever-married women was 25.2% in urban area and 31.2% in rural area. Spousal violence was higher in the rural area of Manipur (56.1%) followed by Telangana (47.6%), Tamil Nadu (44.2%) and Bihar (43.7%). Similar observations were noted in an urban area as shown in Figure 1 . Figure 2 shows a number of cases reported under the head of cruelty by husband and rape. There was an upward trend in a number of cases reported to the head of cruelty by husband and rape from the year 2010 to 2014. Percentage of adolescent pregnancy was higher in Tripura and West Bengal in the rural area (20.7% and 20.6%) as compared to an urban area (13.7% and 12.4%) respectively.

Distribution of states and UTs of India according to percentage of ever-married women who have experienced spousal violence

Distribution of number of cases reported as per National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), India, under head of cruelty by husband and rape from the year 2005 to 2014

Sex ratio at birth for children born in the last five years (females per 1,000 males) : Sex ratio at birth was better in the rural area except for Telangana (865 females/1000 males), Haryana (867 females/1000 males) and Andhra Pradesh (880 females/1000 males). In urban areas, it was lower than 900 females/1000 males in all UTs and 8 states. It was lower in Sikkim (632 females/1000 males), Andaman and Nicobar (708 females/1000 males) and Haryana (785 females/1000 males) as summarized in Figure 3 .

Distribution of states and UTs of India according to sex-ratio at birth in urban and rural areas

In present study female literacy has been significantly lower as compared to male literacy in rural areas of 15 states and 3 UTs except for Meghalaya and Sikkim state and Goa and Andaman and Nicobar UTs. The reason for this may be several parents did not have permitted their female children to go to schools and another reason could be child marriage of girls [ 15 ]. Another reason might be that most people are below the poverty line and weren't conscious that children should get the free education according to the law [ 15 ]. Hence there is a gender gap between educations. The 11 th five-year plan had decided to reduce the gender gap in literacy to 10% points by 2012 [ 16 ]. However in present study gender gap was observed in rural areas of all states except Meghalaya and Sikkim. Also according to censuses held in 2001 and 2011, the percentage of female literacy in the country was 54.16% and 65.46% respectively. An increase in 11.3% during the period 2001-2011, however, this was 3.6% lower than that during the period of 1991-2001. This declining trend over a decade is a matter of concern for sustainable development as it affects women empowerment [ 17 ]. In a country like India, literacy is the core basis of social and economic growth. Though the government has made an act that each child under the age of 14 should get free education, the setback of illiteracy is still at large [ 15 ]. Similarly, Lailulo YA et al had observed gender gap between education in the Ethiopia and also noted that educated women with educational attainment of primary education and above are less likely got married at an early age than those who are uneducated [ 18 ]. Raj Anita et al had studied the prevalence of child marriage using National Family Health Survey-3 data and had found that the maximum frequency of child marriage among women having less than a secondary education and residing in the rural area [ 19 ]. Similar findings were noted in NFHS-4 data phase 1, among top 4 most populated states. West Bengal and Bihar had a higher percentage of child marriage, 46.3 and 40.9% respectively in rural areas. David R et al had also similar observations related to higher prevalence of child marriage to girls with less education and residing in rural areas [ 20 ]. Adolescent pregnancy or 'motherhood in childhood' is one of the gravest health hazards to young women in India. Patra S et al had observed that stillbirth and abortion were more widespread among younger adolescents and the proportion of live births (vs. stillbirth or abortion) was also advanced among women having 10 years or more education [ 21 ]. As per UNFPA, the girl with adolescent pregnancy bears end of her education along with shrinking away from her job prospects and her vulnerability to poverty and exclusion increases [ 22 ]. Impediments from pregnancy and childbirth were the leading cause of death among adolescent girls [ 22 ]. In the present study, it was observed that coverage of full antenatal care (ANC) in states was the lowest in rural Bihar 03% compared to rural Tamil Nadu, 43.8%.Ahmed S et al had observed that women with complete primary education are almost three times more likely to have made at least four ANC visits [ 23 ]. Bihar had 53.7% of women illiteracy in the rural area as compared to Tamil Nadu, 27.1%. Kawaguchi L et al. had noted that women that married young were less likely to utilize ANC [ 24 ]. Bihar had 40.9% of child marriages to the rural area as compared to Tamil Nadu, 18.3%. Birmeta K et al had observed that women with education were more than twice likely to attend ANC as compared with those who had no education [ 25 ]. Ensuring universal accesses to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences. 'Gender equality means that the different behaviors, aspirations, and needs of women and men are considered, valued and favored equally' [ 26 ]. Gender equality is a matter of human rights. It is also a driver of development progress. Gender equality, rooted in human rights, is increasingly recognized both as an essential development goal on its own and as vital to accelerating sustainable development overall [ 27 ]. Sex ratio is defined as the number of females per 1000 males in the population and is an important social indicator to measure the extent of prevailing equity between males and females [ 28 ]. Though the overall sex ratio of the Country is showing a trend of improvement, the child sex ratio is showing a declining trend, which is a matter of concern. Child sex ratio (0-6 years) at country level was 945 in 1991, 927 in 2001 and has now declined to 914 in Census 2011 [ 27 ]. The sex ratio of birth is an indicator of the discrimination against the girl child and dreadful crimes such as female feticide. As per NFHS-4 child sex ratio was the lowest in urban Sikkim, 632 followed by Andaman and Nicobar and Haryana with child sex-ratio of 708 and 785 respectively. Gender inequality manifests itself in various forms, the most obvious being the tendency towards the continuously declining female ratio of the population of the last few decades [ 29 ]. Further research is needed to study the factors associated with declining female ratio of the population.

Limitations : This study had not covered all states and UTs of India. The datasets were not available for NFHS-4 at present, so detailed analysis was not done.

There is the gender gap between illiteracy with women more affected in rural areas with higher prevalence of child marriages and poor utilization of maternal health services. Also, the violence against women is showing an upward trend with declining sex-ratio at birth.

What is known about this topic

• 11 th five year plan of India had decided to reduce the gender gap between literacy to 10% points by 2012;
• Child sex ratio of India was 919 females/1000 males (as per Census 2011).

What this study adds

• 11 out of 15 States/Union Territories (73%) had gender gap of more than 10% in literacy ranging from 10% to 29% in the rural area as compared to urban areas in 6 States/Union Territories (40%) with the range of 10.7% to 18.2%;
• But as per the analyses of primary data of NFHS-4 which was collected from January 2015 to December 2015, child sex ratio of India is declining with lowest, 632/1000 females in urban area of Sikkim and below 800/1000 females in urban area of 5 states States/Union Territories.

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Acknowledgments

The author is obliged to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India and International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai for the data for research purpose from National Family Health Survey 2015-16 (NFHS-4).

Authors’ contributions

The author had participated sufficiently in the intellectual content, conception and design of this work and the analysis and interpretation of the data, as well as the writing of the manuscript. All the authors have read and agreed to the final manuscript.

What are the causes of gender inequality in India?

Lower expenditure by the government on health and education may amplify gender inequality in India Image:  REUTERS/Ajay Verma

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Stay up to date:.

The burden of poverty weighs down heavier on girls and women in India than it does on the opposite sex.

An Oxfam report on inequality published in January revealed that in the workplace, women still receive 34% less wages than their male counterparts for the same work.

And as you go further down the social ladder, things get worse.

“When governments reduce their expenditures on essential public services such as education and healthcare, women and girls are the first ones to lose out on these services,” according to the report.

Gender inequality in India: statistics and causes

Girl children from the lower strata of society are lucky to see a classroom at all. In India, girls belonging to families in the top 20% get nine years of education on average, while girls from families in the bottom 20% get none at all. Even those who make it to school are often pulled out when money is tight, the report said. In addition, more than 23 million girls drop out of school annually because of a lack of toilets in school and proper menstrual hygiene management facilities.

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India's all-women police stations are keeping women safer than before. here's how, why india's wealth isn't reaching women, asia’s 10 most gender equal countries.

Then, because social norms subject women to domesticity, they often have to stay home and look after the young and the elderly.

Women in India spend around five hours a day on unpaid care work while men devote a mere half an hour on average. “This disproportionate burden of unpaid care work by women means they lose out on opportunities to participate in paid labour or are forced to undertake paid labour leading to their time poverty and loss in well-being,” the report said.

These causes of gender inequality in India create an imbalanced system that leaves women vulnerable. A survey of 1,000 households across the central-Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Uttar Pradesh last year revealed that people thought it was acceptable to criticise and beat women if they slipped up while carrying out unpaid care work. In turn, violence continuously sets women back economically. It’s a vicious cycle of gender inequality in India.

Further up the social ladder, gender inequality in India still persists. Even in India’s elite club of three-comma fortunes, women make a blink-and-miss appearance. “There are only nine women billionaires in the list, constituting just 7.5% of the Indian billionaires,” the report said.

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Gender pay gap in U.S. hasn’t changed much in two decades

The gender gap in pay has remained relatively stable in the United States over the past 20 years or so. In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers. These results are similar to where the pay gap stood in 2002, when women earned 80% as much as men.

As has long been the case, the wage gap is smaller for workers ages 25 to 34 than for all workers 16 and older. In 2022, women ages 25 to 34 earned an average of 92 cents for every dollar earned by a man in the same age group – an 8-cent gap. By comparison, the gender pay gap among workers of all ages that year was 18 cents.

While the gender pay gap has not changed much in the last two decades, it has narrowed considerably when looking at the longer term, both among all workers ages 16 and older and among those ages 25 to 34. The estimated 18-cent gender pay gap among all workers in 2022 was down from 35 cents in 1982. And the 8-cent gap among workers ages 25 to 34 in 2022 was down from a 26-cent gap four decades earlier.

The gender pay gap measures the difference in median hourly earnings between men and women who work full or part time in the United States. Pew Research Center’s estimate of the pay gap is based on an analysis of Current Population Survey (CPS) monthly outgoing rotation group files ( IPUMS ) from January 1982 to December 2022, combined to create annual files. To understand how we calculate the gender pay gap, read our 2013 post, “How Pew Research Center measured the gender pay gap.”

The COVID-19 outbreak affected data collection efforts by the U.S. government in its surveys, especially in 2020 and 2021, limiting in-person data collection and affecting response rates. It is possible that some measures of economic outcomes and how they vary across demographic groups are affected by these changes in data collection.

In addition to findings about the gender wage gap, this analysis includes information from a Pew Research Center survey about the perceived reasons for the pay gap, as well as the pressures and career goals of U.S. men and women. The survey was conducted among 5,098 adults and includes a subset of questions asked only for 2,048 adults who are employed part time or full time, from Oct. 10-16, 2022. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used in this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

The  U.S. Census Bureau has also analyzed the gender pay gap, though its analysis looks only at full-time workers (as opposed to full- and part-time workers). In 2021, full-time, year-round working women earned 84% of what their male counterparts earned, on average, according to the Census Bureau’s most recent analysis.

Much of the gender pay gap has been explained by measurable factors such as educational attainment, occupational segregation and work experience. The narrowing of the gap over the long term is attributable in large part to gains women have made in each of these dimensions.

Related: The Enduring Grip of the Gender Pay Gap

Even though women have increased their presence in higher-paying jobs traditionally dominated by men, such as professional and managerial positions, women as a whole continue to be overrepresented in lower-paying occupations relative to their share of the workforce. This may contribute to gender differences in pay.

Other factors that are difficult to measure, including gender discrimination, may also contribute to the ongoing wage discrepancy.

Perceived reasons for the gender wage gap

When asked about the factors that may play a role in the gender wage gap, half of U.S. adults point to women being treated differently by employers as a major reason, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2022. Smaller shares point to women making different choices about how to balance work and family (42%) and working in jobs that pay less (34%).

There are some notable differences between men and women in views of what’s behind the gender wage gap. Women are much more likely than men (61% vs. 37%) to say a major reason for the gap is that employers treat women differently. And while 45% of women say a major factor is that women make different choices about how to balance work and family, men are slightly less likely to hold that view (40% say this).

Parents with children younger than 18 in the household are more likely than those who don’t have young kids at home (48% vs. 40%) to say a major reason for the pay gap is the choices that women make about how to balance family and work. On this question, differences by parental status are evident among both men and women.

Views about reasons for the gender wage gap also differ by party. About two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (68%) say a major factor behind wage differences is that employers treat women differently, but far fewer Republicans and Republican leaners (30%) say the same. Conversely, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say women’s choices about how to balance family and work (50% vs. 36%) and their tendency to work in jobs that pay less (39% vs. 30%) are major reasons why women earn less than men.

Democratic and Republican women are more likely than their male counterparts in the same party to say a major reason for the gender wage gap is that employers treat women differently. About three-quarters of Democratic women (76%) say this, compared with 59% of Democratic men. And while 43% of Republican women say unequal treatment by employers is a major reason for the gender wage gap, just 18% of GOP men share that view.

Pressures facing working women and men

Family caregiving responsibilities bring different pressures for working women and men, and research has shown that being a mother can reduce women’s earnings , while fatherhood can increase men’s earnings .

Employed women and men are about equally likely to say they feel a great deal of pressure to support their family financially and to be successful in their jobs and careers, according to the Center’s October survey. But women, and particularly working mothers, are more likely than men to say they feel a great deal of pressure to focus on responsibilities at home.

About half of employed women (48%) report feeling a great deal of pressure to focus on their responsibilities at home, compared with 35% of employed men. Among working mothers with children younger than 18 in the household, two-thirds (67%) say the same, compared with 45% of working dads.

When it comes to supporting their family financially, similar shares of working moms and dads (57% vs. 62%) report they feel a great deal of pressure, but this is driven mainly by the large share of unmarried working mothers who say they feel a great deal of pressure in this regard (77%). Among those who are married, working dads are far more likely than working moms (60% vs. 43%) to say they feel a great deal of pressure to support their family financially. (There were not enough unmarried working fathers in the sample to analyze separately.)

About four-in-ten working parents say they feel a great deal of pressure to be successful at their job or career. These findings don’t differ by gender.

Gender differences in job roles, aspirations

Overall, a quarter of employed U.S. adults say they are currently the boss or one of the top managers where they work, according to the Center’s survey. Another 33% say they are not currently the boss but would like to be in the future, while 41% are not and do not aspire to be the boss or one of the top managers.

Men are more likely than women to be a boss or a top manager where they work (28% vs. 21%). This is especially the case among employed fathers, 35% of whom say they are the boss or one of the top managers where they work. (The varying attitudes between fathers and men without children at least partly reflect differences in marital status and educational attainment between the two groups.)

In addition to being less likely than men to say they are currently the boss or a top manager at work, women are also more likely to say they wouldn’t want to be in this type of position in the future. More than four-in-ten employed women (46%) say this, compared with 37% of men. Similar shares of men (35%) and women (31%) say they are not currently the boss but would like to be one day. These patterns are similar among parents.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on March 22, 2019. Anna Brown and former Pew Research Center writer/editor Amanda Barroso contributed to an earlier version of this analysis. Here are the questions used in this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

What is the gender wage gap in your metropolitan area? Find out with our pay gap calculator

• Gender & Work
• Gender Equality & Discrimination
• Gender Pay Gap
• Gender Roles

Carolina Aragão is a research associate focusing on social and demographic trends at Pew Research Center

Women have gained ground in the nation’s highest-paying occupations, but still lag behind men

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