Thread by @IndiaSpend

Indian women spend nearly 5 hours on unpaid care work every day against the ½ hour that men do. Unpaid care by women could actually trigger violence against them, shows an @OxfamIndia study. Follow the thread for details:

The researchers conducted 7 focus group discussions with 161 participants (adolescent girls and women) in Udaipur, and in-depth interviews with 28 men & 32 women in rural Udaipur, 4 men & 10 women in urban Udaipur, and 4 men & 8 women in Delhi

Across locations, unpaid work remained the primary identity and responsibility of women, they found. 50% of women said men should not help with housework

In Udaipur’s Salumbar, 24 of 25 adolescent girls who were part of the focus group discussion supported housework instead of paid work. We had reported in March 2019 on how unpaid work is keeping India’s women poor
indiaspend.com/how-unpaid-wor…

Given their little education, no marketable skills, no or erratic employment options and restricted mobility, girls and women in rural Udaipur saw unpaid care work as their only meaningful labour

Women in Delhi, on the other hand, have the choice of outsourcing their unpaid care work responsibilities to other women from poorer families. 40.4% of households in Delhi hired paid domestic workers, per a 2015 survey

With the primary responsibility of unpaid care on women, a mistake or unfulfillment of these could trigger domestic violence against women, the study found. 6 of the 18 men interviewed admitted that they had beaten or harshly criticised their wives

In households where men and women expressed greater acceptability of hitting women, women spent 42 minutes longer on paid and unpaid care work and 48 minutes less on leisure activities, found @OxfamIndia

Nearly 1/3rd of women aged 15-49 years agreed that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife if she neglects the house or children. Nearly 1 in 5 thought so in case the wife doesn’t cook properly

Read the full report by @OxfamIndia here: d1ns4ht6ytuzzo.cloudfront.net/oxfamdata/oxfa…