Understanding inequalities in terms of time allocation: new evidence from Kerala

Work, in its diverse forms contributes to the human development, economic growth and social development of a nation. The work force in an economy can engage in three kinds of activities, namely System of National Accounts (SNA) work, Extended SNA work and Non-SNA work. This paper makes an attempt to analyze the time allocation pattern of men and women and explore the gender disparity in time allocated for unpaid care work in particular. The research design was a small scale exploratory design utilizing cross-sectional face to face recall Interview Schedule using a light time activity matrix and focus group discussions. The study revealed the skewed distribution of unpaid care work between men and women. On an average, time spent by women for unpaid care work was eighteen times more than men. A striking finding of the study was that 73 per cent of men did not spend any time for unpaid care work, whereas all women, irrespective of their employment status did some kind of unpaid care work. 95.87 per cent of women spend more than four hours a day only for the house work component of the unpaid care work. The care dependency ratio of the study area was estimated to be 0.4365 and it is an indication of the high care demands from the part of children and elderly persons.The regular collection of time-use data can be of tremendous value for government agencies for gender sensitive programmes, schemes and prioritizing allocation of resources from a gender perspective. This can be achieved only by proper gender budgeting.