International Women’s Day: Why housework demands redistribution, not just recognition

However, merely acknowledging the value of housework is not enough. The romanticisation of housework as an expression of tradition and love does not negate its exploitative nature. Moreover, the growing participation of women in the workforce doesn’t necessarily reduce the responsibilities of housework, but rather exposes many to the ‘double burden’ of work. 

As we celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, the occasion invites discussions on housework as a collective shared responsibility.

Double burden

With the growing participation of women in the labour force, many are increasingly exposed to the ‘double burden’ of work. Many of them perform one shift in paid employment and the second at home. In The Second Shift: Working Families And The Revolution At Home (1989), Arlie Hochschild argues that women’s participation in the workforce doesn’t necessarily reduce the responsibilities for housework. Instead, many face time poverty, which means less rest, leisure, and personal care.

The latest Time-Use Survey (January to December 2024), released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), shows that females aged 6 years and above spend 289 minutes a day on unpaid domestic work, compared with 88 minutes for males. Of their time, females spend 16.4 per cent on unpaid domestic work, while males spend only 1.7 per cent. 

Females in India also spend 137 minutes a day on caregiving activities, compared with 75 minutes for males. This is despite annual labour force surveys showing an increase in women’s participation from 24.5 per cent in 2018-19 to 41.7 per cent in 2023-24. 

These statistics reinforce how the gendered division of labour works within a household. Women are working more, both inside and outside the household.

Intersectional nature of housework

The persistence of this has meant that, for those who can afford it, domestic work is often outsourced to other women. But these female workers are frequently drawn from marginalised groups and often face exploitation because of their caste, class, and gender. 

A 2016 report by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) titled Locating the Processes of Policy Change in the Context of Anti-Rape and Domestic Worker Mobilisations in India by Shraddha Chigateri, Mubashira Zaidi, and Anweshaa Ghosh, shows how a large share of domestic workers come from historically disadvantaged sections such as scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backward classes. 

There is also a reluctance to recognise domestic workers as workers, which further illustrates how housework continues to be invisibilised. This reluctance warrants deeper debates on housework.  

Debates on housework

Marxist feminist analysis has explored the material aspects of gender relations within family units. They look at the nature of the work people do in the family and their control over the products of their labour. Heidi Hartmann, in her essay The Family as the Locus of Gender, Class, and Political Struggle: The Example of Housework (1981), argues that the control of women’s labour power allows men to benefit from women’s provision of personal and household services.

The division of labour that relegates women to performing unpaid housework benefits the patriarchal structure of society. In her pioneering sociological work, The Sociology of Housework (1974), Ann Oakley illustrates how most women, irrespective of social class, were dissatisfied with housework. This was an important finding as it unsettled the prevalent assumption that women derive happiness from housework.

Women are usually confined to performing unpaid labour such as preparing meals, doing laundry, cleaning the house, and caring for children and other family members. Yet, they are classified as ‘non-working housewives’. 

In her article Dynamics of Sexual Division of Labour and Capital Accumulation: Women Lace Workers of Narsapur (1981), Maria Mies argues that this classification is important as it enabled the unlimited exploitation of women’s labour both within the household and in the informal sector. Her study of lacemakers in Narsapur of West Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, shows how women make the lace and men sell it in the market. But census enumerators record only men as wage workers, while women are categorised as ‘non-working’. 

Fight for housework wages

As we celebrate International Working Women’s Day, it is important to reflect on feminist movements in the 1970s, which transformed the meaning of women’s work. For instance, the Wages for Housework (WfH) campaign argued that housework is work and that it sustains capitalism. The demand for wages for unpaid domestic labour was put forward as a symbolic move to highlight women’s contribution to the economy. 

While the International Working Women’s Day has historically focused on women workers’ labour rights, gradually, it has evolved into a larger critique of the burden of women’s labour. In recent years, there have been women’s strikes in several countries, including Spain, Argentina, and Poland, on March 8, demanding acknowledgment of women’s labour. 

Therefore, India needs to have a comprehensive nationwide policy framework that recognises housework as a valuable labour, consistent with the values of equality and social justice as enshrined in Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution. 

Policy debates 

Notably, discussions during the 2020 meetings of the Advisory Expert Group on National Accounts explored ways for measuring and valuing unpaid household service work within the System of National Accounts (SNA) framework. 

One approach could be estimating the value of unpaid work by measuring the inputs like land, labour, and capital, as well as calculating the units of services produced and consumed. It has been argued that if an activity could be outsourced to someone else, it should be counted as productive labour, including childcare, nutrition care, shopping, etc.

This policy framework builds on the works of scholars such as Nancy Folbre and Silvia Federici, who have argued that unpaid domestic and care work is at the heart of creating capitalist economies, but remains devalued. 

Need for recognition and redistribution

There needs to be a standardisation of compensation guidelines for homemakers in case of accident cases, divorce settlements, and inheritance disputes. There also needs to be social security schemes for unpaid caregivers that align with the Global Care Work Standards mandated by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). 

Provisions such as public child care facilities, community kitchens, and elder care centres can act as facilitators to reduce the unpaid burden of housework. Simply paying wages for housework can lead to greater reinforcement of gendered domestic norms. Similarly, relying only on cash transfers without broader social security measures may not provide long-term benefits. 

Instead, we require a combination of recognition (measurement as indicated by the Time-Use survey), and redistributive measures like legal protection and socio-economic security to make housework considered valuable. Just recognition without redistribution is unsustainable. 

Post read questions

In a recent case involving the grant of maintenance in a matrimonial dispute, the Delhi High Court observed that the assumption that a non-earning spouse is “idle” reflects a misunderstanding of domestic contribution. Discuss its significance in recognising the economic value of homemakers’ labour.

Analyse how unpaid domestic labour contributes to the functioning of capitalist economies while remaining undervalued.

Evaluate the effectiveness of policy interventions such as social security for caregivers, public childcare, and community kitchens in addressing unpaid housework.

Recognition without redistribution cannot transform gender inequalities. Discuss in the context of unpaid care work.

What is time poverty? Discuss its gendered dimensions.

(Rituparna Patgiri is an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati.)

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