Gender Inequalities in Household Cleaning, Maintenance, and Caregiving in Urban India:A Social Determinants of Health Perspective
Using 2019 and 2024 Time Use Survey data from urban India, this study reveals that while a significant gender gap in unpaid cleaning and maintenance persists, it is narrowing primarily due to increased participation by men rather than reduced duration for women, demonstrating the utility of such microdata for monitoring SDG 5.4.1 and social determinants of health.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
In many parts of the world, the work that keeps a home running—cooking, cleaning, caring for children and elderly relatives—is rarely counted in national economic reports. This invisible labor is often called unpaid domestic work. While it sustains families and communities, it is not distributed equally between men and women. In many societies, women perform the vast majority of this work, leaving them with less time for paid employment, rest, or their own personal goals. This imbalance is not just a matter of fairness; it is increasingly viewed by health experts as a fundamental factor that shapes a person's well-being. When one group of people spends significantly more hours on demanding daily tasks than another, it affects their physical health, their mental state, and their ability to participate fully in society. Understanding exactly how much time is spent on these tasks, and how that time is divided, provides a clear picture of the daily realities that shape health outcomes.
A recent study focused on urban India sought to measure this invisible workload with unprecedented precision. Researchers used data from two large national surveys, one conducted in 2019 and another in 2024, to track how men and women aged 15 to 59 spent their days. They looked specifically at the time spent on cleaning and maintaining one's own home and surroundings, as well as the time spent caring for dependent adults. By examining the raw, individual records from these surveys rather than just the broad summaries usually released to the public, the team could see exactly which activities were being performed and by whom. Their goal was to see if the gap between men and women was changing over time and to understand whether the difference was driven by the fact that women were doing the work at all, or by how long they spent doing it once they started.
The results paint a stark picture of daily life in Indian cities. In 2019, an urban woman spent an average of nearly 50 minutes every day on household cleaning and maintenance. In contrast, an urban man spent less than three minutes on the same tasks. By 2024, the situation had shifted slightly but remained deeply unequal. Women's average time dropped to about 39 minutes per day, while men's time remained very low at roughly two and a half minutes. This means that even in 2024, a woman in an Indian city was spending more than fifteen times as long on these chores as a man. The study confirmed that this massive gap is a persistent feature of urban life, one that has not disappeared despite the passage of five years.
What makes these findings particularly revealing is how the researchers broke down the difference. They discovered that the gap is not primarily about how long a task takes once someone is doing it. Instead, the main driver is simply who is doing the work at all. In 2019, nearly 69 percent of women reported doing some form of household cleaning on a given day, whereas only about 5 percent of men did. Among those who did the work, the time spent was different, but the sheer fact that women were the ones performing the task was the dominant factor creating the inequality. This suggests that the issue is rooted in deep-seated social norms about who is responsible for the home, rather than just a matter of efficiency or the difficulty of the specific chores.
The study also looked at specific types of work that are often hidden inside broader categories. For instance, they isolated the time spent on garbage disposal. While this is a critical task for public health, the data showed it accounts for a tiny fraction of the total cleaning time, less than a minute a day for both men and women. This finding clarifies that the massive gender gap in cleaning time is driven by general housework, not specifically by waste management. Similarly, the researchers examined time spent caring for dependent adults, including helping them with medical needs. This type of caregiving was found to be much less common than general cleaning, with very few people of either gender reporting it on a daily basis, though women still performed it more often than men.
Over the five years between the two surveys, the researchers observed a small but measurable shift. The gap between men and women narrowed by roughly ten minutes per day. While this is a statistically significant change, it is modest when viewed against the backdrop of a gap that started at nearly 50 minutes. The data suggests that while progress is happening, it is occurring at a slow pace. The study also found that the burden was not felt equally across all economic groups. The gap in time spent on chores was largest among the poorest households and those living in less permanent housing. This indicates that women in more disadvantaged situations carry a heavier absolute load, likely because they cannot afford to hire help or rely on better infrastructure to reduce their workload.
Ultimately, this research provides a clear, data-driven view of the daily time allocation that defines life for millions of urban Indians. It confirms that unpaid domestic work remains a heavily gendered activity, with women bearing the overwhelming majority of the responsibility. The study does not measure the direct health effects of this work, such as stress or physical injury, but it establishes the foundation of time use that makes those health questions relevant. By showing exactly how time is divided, the research highlights that the path toward equality lies not just in making chores faster, but in changing who performs them. The slow narrowing of the gap offers a glimpse of change, but the persistence of the divide underscores that the social norms governing the home are slow to shift.
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