Patriarchy and the pandemic: housework allocation among dual-earner couples in India

Garikipati, S., Hui, N. and Kambhampati, U. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5906-2394 (2025) Patriarchy and the pandemic: housework allocation among dual-earner couples in India. Feminist Economics. ISSN 1466-4372 doi: 10.1080/13545701.2025.2581886

Abstract/Summary

Unpaid housework done by men and women in dual-earner households goes to the heart of gender inequality. We explore this issue for urban India during the COVID-19 lockdown when work from home spiked and housework increased. We examine the extent to which women’s responsibility for housework and help given by partners changed during lockdown and any systematic differences in chores done by men and women. We conceptualize and empirically measure base household-level patriarchy. This helps distill ‘real’ shifts in the gendered division of housework during the lockdown. Gender norms, access to domestic help, and women’s income mattered for partners’ willingness to take on additional chores. Although housework increased for both partners, women did more time-invariant tasks and men more time-variant tasks. This suggests women had to juggle paid work around domestic responsibilities while men experienced fewer impinging effects of increases in housework.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/116917
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/13545701.2025.2581886
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Politics, Economics and International Relations > Economics
Publisher	Taylor & Francis
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