Three Fordham GSS community members published research this month that uncovered a significant association between women’s unpaid care work (UCW) and their employment status in India.
Using the first Indian 2019 Time Use Survey, the study, titled “Unpaid Care Work Time and Women’s Employment Status: Evidence from India,” explores how this relationship varies across different socio-demographic factors such as age, marital status, education level, and household size—while also considering the influences of religion, social group status, household expenditure, and geographic location.
Saumya Tripathi, Ph.D., GSS ’22, collaborated with GSS faculty members Sameena Azhar, Ph.D., and Fuhua Zhai, Ph.D., as co-authors. The study was published in The British Journal of Social Work.
The Findings
The findings reveal an inverse association: as women’s time spent on unpaid care work increases, their likelihood of being employed, self-employed, or pursuing higher education decreases. Specifically, each additional hour dedicated to UCW reduces the odds of employment by 38%, self-employment by 27%, and higher education by 34%. This suggests that the burden of unpaid care work significantly hampers women’s economic and educational opportunities.
Further decomposition analysis highlighted that nearly 80% of the employment status odds ratios are attributable to the increased time spent on UCW, rather than socio-demographic factors. This underscores the critical need for integrating care provisions into India’s broader social and economic policies.
