1. Early findings in a paper by Ashoka University economist Ashwini Deshpande show India’s gender gap housework reduced by an hour during the lockdown.
2. The data also revealed that the average time spent on housework by women was 4 hours per day in December 2019. The gender gap in household work fell by roughly one hour in April, as men spent more time on domestic chores than they had last year.
3. Although the time spent by men on housework per day rose by roughly one hour, the rise was 25% of the time spent by women on housework per day.
4. The paper is based on the CMIE’s Consumer Pyramids Household Survey which compares 43,000 individuals in December 2019 and in April 2020, when the lockdown was in force.
5. States including Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, and Tamil Nadu showed the sharpest declines in the gender gap for domestic work.
6. On average, a larger proportion of men seem to be doing household works between 30 minutes to 4 hours compared with the pre-lockdown period.
