Getting the measurement right! quantifying time poverty and multitasking from childcare among mothers with children across different age groups in rural north India

Abstract

Existing research suggests that women spend a disproportionate amount of time on unpaid housework and childcare compared to men. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence on unequal time burdens due to childcare among women. This study analyses the quantum of time poverty and multitasking behaviours of 3623 rural women with children of varying ages across rural North India. Findings show that mothers with infants spend more time on childcare and less time on self-care and leisure, and employmentrelated activities as compared to mothers with older children; they also multitask with childcare more than mothers of older children across all their daily activities. Our findings suggest that interventions and policies need to be designed to raise awareness, identify/adopt novel approaches and technologies to reduce work burden of unpaid work on women's time, provide accessible childcare and encourage a more equitable distribution of household responsibilities.

Planning for work: Exploring the relationship between contraceptive use and women’s sector-specific employment in India

“…Similarly, past year employment among married Indian women aged 15–49 declined by 12 percentage points (from 43% to 31%) between 2005–06 and 2015–16 [ 39 , 44 ]. Time poverty amongst working women in India is particularly acute [ 45 , 46 ]. As a result of strong gender asymmetry in the division of domestic labor, most working women in India still spend a substantial amount of their time on housework and caring for their children [ 45 , 47 – 49 ].…”

“…Time poverty amongst working women in India is particularly acute [ 45 , 46 ]. As a result of strong gender asymmetry in the division of domestic labor, most working women in India still spend a substantial amount of their time on housework and caring for their children [ 45 , 47 – 49 ]. Many women opt to withdraw from the labor force entirely in order to take care of their children, or alternately, choose an occupation that is more accommodating of their prescribed gender roles [ 50 ].…”

Educational attainment and housework participation among Japanese, Taiwanese, and American women across adult life transitions

“…Previous research on gender equality and housework in Japan, Taiwan, and the United States Despite women's growing educational attainment and some legal progress in protecting women's rights in the three countries' labour markets, women still do most housework in Japan, Taiwan, and the U.S. (Inaba, 1998;Ishii-Kuntz, 2009;Matsuda, 2001;Nishioka & Yamauchi, 2017;Tsuya, 2000;Tsuya et al, 2005). In each of these three countries, women's disproportionate share of housework is especially pronounced among couples with young children (Bianchi et al, 2012;Cheng & Hsu, 2020;Irani & Vemireddy, 2021;Nakamura & Akiyoshi, 2015), which may be alleviated to an extent by assistance from women in their extended families (Hu & Kamo, 2007;Kang & Cohen, 2018;Takahashi et al, 2013). Nevertheless, in East Asia, the division of labour still adheres to the traditional model featuring male-breadwinner and female-homemaker households (Slote & De Vos, 1998); Japanese and Taiwanese men occupy the public sphere and participate in the market economy, and their cultures still pressure most married women to stay at home and to perform the majority of housework and childcare (Borovoy, 2005;Chen & Yi, 2005;Kato et al, 2018;Shirahase, 2007).…”

Harmful alcohol use among mothers of under-five child: findings from the Panel Study on Korean Children

“…In a study of biological parents of under 5 children, they observed an association between father's regular alcohol use and children's developmental delay mediated by less-skilled maternal parenting practices [ 13 ]. We postulate the increasing risk of harmful alcohol use over time can be due to their limited choice in the measures to relieve their stress, given their burden of house chores and childcare [ 18 ]. Especially for alcohol use, studies have shown gender differences in stress-related alcohol use: women are generally more likely to drink to regulate negative affect and stress reactivity while men may be more likely to drink for positive reinforcement [ 30 ].…”

“…To assess the prevalence of harmful alcohol use in mothers of young children, we restricted our analysis to the data of biological mothers of under 5-year children. The first wave in 2008 included 2,150 mother-baby pairs and 81.6% of the primary sample was retained in the 4th wave study in 2011 [ 18 ]. Information about participants’ age, highest education, monthly income, employment status of the year, current smoking, harmful alcohol use and smoking of the partner, plan for additional childbirth, and parenting stress were obtained using self-administered questionnaires.…”