The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation conducted the ‘Time Use Survey’ for the first time which has revealed that only 38.2 per cent of the population is engaged in ’employment and other related activities,’ where they spend around 429 minutes (7 hours and 9 minutes) on an average per day.

According to The Indian Express report, a wide gender inequity has been noticed in the survey results with only 18.4 per cent women engaged in employment activities while 57.3 per cent men participating in employment. It also shows that women spend only 333 minutes (5 hours and 33 minutes) on work and men spend around 459 minutes (7 hours and 39 minutes) on an average.

On Tuesday, NSS released the finding of its a report on the ‘Time Use in India 2019’ which is the first of its a kind survey to be conducted in India. The survey was conducted to measure the active participation of women in both paid and unpaid employment activities as well as estimate the time arrangement and disposition on various activities.

The survey conducted between January 2019 and December 2019 listed out more than 1.39 lakh households across India which include around 4.47 lakh individuals above the age of six.

The results show the participation of women in various unpaid household work for family members like cooking, cleaning, managing the household and other related activities. Women participation in such domestic services has been recorded as 81.2 per cent per day while it is only 26.1 per cent for men. Women spend 299 minutes (5 hours) which is triple the work performed by men which is 97 minutes (1 hour and 37 minutes).

A huge time disparity has also been noticed in the results where women spend a lot more time in care-giving activities to dependent children or an adult person than men. Around 14 per cent men are engaged in unpaid care-giving services for family members where they spend 76 minutes per day (1 hour and 16 minutes) on an average while women participate in these activities almost double times as those of men at 27.6 per cent. Over two hours (2 hours 14 minutes) are spent by women in such care-giving activities.

According to the survey, Indians are not much content with the idea of working as unpaid volunteers or trainees or participate in unpaid volunteering with some community or organization. Just 2.4 per cent of the population participates in such voluntary work. Around 101 minutes per day on an average are spent on volunteering services.

However, around 91.3 per cent of the population participates in socialising through chatting, conversing, taking part in community gatherings or religious activities each day. They spend around 143 minutes on such activities every day.

People participating in mass media, sports, culture, leisure with the help of reading, watching television is quite high where around 86.9 per cent of the individuals spend 165 minutes per day on an average.

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