How the unemployed spend time
THE NATIONAL Statistical Office recently put out a report detailing how Indians spend their time. It also offered a split between the employed and the unemployed. Among other things, the unemployed spend significantly more time educating themselves than the employed, shows the data (see chart 1).
There is also an interesting parity between the unemployed person in both the urban and rural areas. Both spend nearly the exact amount of time
(162 minutes versus 159 minutes) in unpaid domestic services for members of their household. The time they spend socialising is also similar. The urban unemployed person tends to spend almost 35 extra minutes daily on learning (see chart 2).
Gender data shows some difference. Women are more likely to be doing unpaid domestic services compared to men, even if both are unemployed (see chart 3). This is true in both rural and urban settings. The average daily difference in time spent on such activities ranges from around 45 minutes to nearly two hours between unemployed men and women (see chart 4).
This disproportionate domestic burden on women is significant in light of the recent rise in unemployment. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy data shows that unemployment peaked at around 23.5 per cent in April, as the country went through a lockdown to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. Unemployment has since come down (see chart 5), but there have been concerns of a faltering recovery amid limited private and government spending. A delayed recovery could pose risks to recent gains in employment. Also, the quality of employment has suffered after the outbreak of the pandemic.
A recent Mckinsey Global Institute note shows that rising unemployment tends to affect women more. They typically have had a smaller share of jobs before the pandemic and a higher share of job losses afterwards (see chart 6).
This may well suggest that the disproportionate burden of domestic work would have gotten worse for women after the pandemic. It remains to be seen whether women are able to return to the workforce as the economy recovers from the nationwide shutdown.