Time Allocation of Men and Women in India: The Role of Bargaining Power

Project Information

GenderedTimeUse

Grant agreement ID: 101104910

DOI

10.3030/101104910

Project closed

EC signature date 17 April 2023

Start date 1 May 2023

End date 31 August 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 203 464,32

Coordinated by

TILBURG UNIVERSITY- UNIVERSITEIT VAN TILBURG
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GenderedTimeUse (Time Allocation of Men and Women in India: The Role of Bargaining Power)

Reporting period: 2023-05-01 to 2025-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The time allocated to various activities shapes the economy by influencing the relative prices of goods and services, the growth of real output, and the income distribution. At the micro-level, how individuals use their time has consequences for their health and overall well-being. Consequently, economists have exploited time-use data to study economic behavior. In particular, they paid considerable attention to differences between how the two partners in a couple spend their time. This has primarily been done in developed countries, whereas couples' time allocation across paid and unpaid activities in developing countries remains understudied.

The project contributes to the literature by studying the time allocation of couples in India, with a focus on gender differences and the role of relative education. In addition, the project examines within-gender bargaining by examining how co-resident female in-laws in multigenerational families in India bargain about time allocations. Finally, the project contributes to a novel question by considering the long-term health impacts of residents who face a delayed sunset time. While there is some evidence at developed countries, this is the first time that such evidence is provided for a middle-income country, namely, India.

All the research works conducted as a part of the Fellowship involve econometric techniques to draw insights into the economic behavior of individuals. The research contributes to the discourse on Sustainable Development Goal 5.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

This project involves three research projects, primarily using the Time Use Survey 2019 and 2024, India Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2015-16 and 2019-21. The surveys used for this project are nationally representative and provide a host of demographic, health and time-use information for all residents of India. In the first and third research projects, we try to examine the causal impact of acquiring a higher education on time allocation. In the second research project, we examine the causal impact of exogenous sunset time on long-term health outcomes, and examine how short-term behavior, such as differential time allocations drive our results. In all the projects, we show the gendered impacts of time allocations and conclude that a lot of work remains if India were to achieve gender-equal time allocations.

The main achievements are (1) the working papers that are available under open access arrangements to encourage further discourse on this topic (2) the novel evidence that is provided for developing country contexts, which was not present before.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This project is the first to show how couples bargain for time allocations in low-middle-income country settings, something that was missing in the literature. Second, it is the first to show that the effect of geographic and climatic factors, such as sunset time, and weather controls, such as temperature and precipitation, have very different effects on developing countries, relative to developed countries. Thus, the project pushes the boundary of thinking by reinforcing the fact that results are not generalisable across countries and cultural factors and societal norms can play a strong role.

Webinar for academic and non-academic audience to share the results