YouAdults in their 20s are the backbone of a country. These are the years in a person’s life when some are completing their education while others are in the beginning of their career. Many people get married and take on new responsibilities for their family. With an average age of 29 years, India has one of the youngest populations in the world.
People in this age group today will work for the most number of years and thus, contribute the most to the expansion of the Indian economy.
So how young men and women spend their time provides us with a clue about the functioning of society.
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division among young adults
Using nationally representative data from the Time Use Survey 2019-20 for India, we explore how an average employed youth in India spends their day and if the pattern differs for men and women. According to the survey, 78 percent and 70 percent of young men were working on salary in rural and urban India, respectively, and the same ratio was for 16 percent and 17 percent of young women. The survey classifies a person as ’employed’ if they are in paid work during the prime time of the reference year (six months or more), irrespective of the number of hours worked.
On average, young men in urban India worked the longest hours – 8.5 hours a day, followed by young men in rural India at just over 7 hours a day. Women employed in urban areas worked for 6.5 hours, while in rural areas, paid work took an average of about 4 hours 45 minutes. This pattern is suggestive of a large proportion of women employed in part-time employment, especially in rural areas.
While young women spent less time working to earn money than men, they did spend more time doing household chores. In rural India, young women on salary spent about 4 hours and 50 minutes on household chores, while their counterparts in urban areas spent about 2 hours and 45 minutes on household chores. In contrast, employed youths spent 40 and 30 minutes doing household chores in rural and urban areas, respectively.
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What does marriage do?
Further analysis of daily time use taking into account the marital status of young adults reveals how marriage shifts the burden of household chores and child care to women. An unmarried employed woman spent about 1.5 hours in these activities while her married counterpart spent about five and a half hours.
In contrast, an unmarried employed person spent about 25 minutes on household chores, while a married man worked for about 47 minutes on pay. In short, marriage may not make much difference to men’s daily time use patterns, but it is to women, and this change is significant.
Young men, regardless of their employment status, were more likely to be involved in community and social work compared to related groups of young women. This difference is much higher in rural areas. This potentially points to the strict gender norms faced by women that restrict their mobility and participation in such activities.
As for the time spent in leisure activities, on average all young employed adults spent about 1 hour and 45 minutes on them, except for rural young women who spent about 1 hour and 20 minutes on them, which might be homework. Indicates more time taken. A married young woman working for pay enjoyed the least amount of time in leisure activities compared to all other groups.
Among the variety of leisure activities, most of the time was spent on the mass media – about 1 hour 10 minutes a day by young adults working in urban areas. In rural areas, young employed men spent about an hour on mass media activities while women spent about 50 minutes.
While an average of about 20 to 34 minutes each day was spent by young adults relaxing and reflecting in paid work, their participation in sports and cultural activities was negligible, even among men. Fifteen percent of youth in education and 16 percent of unemployed young men reported participating in sports activities. For the rest of the young adults, less than 1 in 10 spent time in sports/exercise, and there is a large gender divide in the ratio, especially in rural areas. Clearly, rebalancing leisure activities towards some physical activity would result in a healthier lifestyle for young adults.
Lastly, and not surprisingly, the largest group of activity spends hours on sleep and self-care, with about 11 to 12 hours. The least amount of time was spent by young women in urban areas – an average of 11 hours on self-care and sleep, while young men in rural areas spent the maximum time, about 11 hours and 50 minutes, in the same activity.
The above pattern of how young Indian adults spend their time in paid work gives us a glimpse into the rural-urban and gender-wise gap in India.
Vidya Mahambare is Professor of Economics and Director (Research) at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, Soumya Dhanraj is Senior Research Fellow, Good Business Lab, and Shambhavi Chandra is a graduate of Madras School of Economics. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Likes)