Exploring the distribution of women’s work
between income generation,
expenditure-saving, and unpaid domestic
responsibilities in India
Ashwini Deshpande, Naila Kabeer
5th April 2025
1 Introduction
[1] The paper written by Deshapande and Kabir, Exploring the distribution
of women’s work between income generation, expenditure-saving, and un-
paid domestic responsibilities in India. This paper tries to explore how the
women’s work is distributed among income generation, expenditure saving,
and full domestic responsibilities in India. It has been observed that India
has one of the lowest female participation, and it is steadily decreasing since
2004. Despite various factors which can help in increasing participation like:
high rates of growth, rising levels of female education, and lower rates of
fertility, the participation is decreasing. The analysis was based on a purpo-
sively designed primary survey of women’s labour force behaviour in seven
districts in the state of West Bengal in 2017. The main findings are that
female are primarily responsible for domestic works, elderly care, child care,
which reduce the probability of female working. Some religious factors like
veiling or adherence to Islam can also be accounted for. The explanation
for the decreasing participation are mismeasurement in the NSS data, the
U-shaped relation between female education and labour force participation,
sociological factors (Male dominance) and various social groups.
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2 Measurement issues in female labour force
participation in India:
[1]
1. Narrow definition of employment: The labor force is typically defined as
individuals who are either employed or actively seeking employment.
This often excludes groups that are crucial to understanding female
labor force participation, such as those engaged in unpaid domestic
work, part-time workers, or individuals who are discouraged and have
stopped actively searching for a job.
2. Survey and data collection methodology : Survey and data collection
methodologies that focus on traditional, formal employment and ig-
nore informal, unpaid, or part-time work, or fail to account for gender-
specific factors such as caregiving responsibilities, significantly under-
estimate female labor force participation
3. Inadequate recognition of part time work : Women are overrepresented
in part-time work due to various socio-economic factors, and failing
to capture this form of employment in labor force surveys leads to an
underestimation of women’s actual participation in the economy.
This paper tries to give alternate method with some more follow up questions
to give an accurate picture of the female participation.
3 Variations in female participation in con-
ventional labour force and expenditure sav-
ing activity:
[1] This section of the paper deals with various tables and graphs to provide
us the better picture of the reality. Deshpande and Kabir’s study explores
how women’s work extends beyond formal employment to include unpaid,
expenditure-saving activities like home production. It finds significant vari-
ation in female labour participation across districts, which cannot be fully
explained by religion or income levels. Rural women, and those with either
low or high education levels, are more likely to be conventionally employed,
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while moderate education correlates with expenditure-saving roles. Domestic
responsibilities like childcare and elder care cut across all labour categories,
constraining women’s work. Asset ownership supports participation in con-
ventional labour, while higher household income tends to reduce women’s
workforce involvement.
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4 Estimating women’s labour force participa-
tion
[1] This section highlights the challenges in accurately estimating women’s
labour force participation (LFP) in India due to the invisibility of infor-
mal and unpaid work. Many women engage in home-based, agricultural,
or family work that is underreported or not considered “work” by conven-
tional surveys. Standard methods like UPSS and CWS underestimate female
LFP, while time-use surveys reveal significant unpaid contributions. Cultural
norms also cause women to underreport their activities. The authors advo-
cate for redefining “work” to include unpaid productive activities, emphasiz-
ing that better measurement tools are essential to truly capture the extent
of women’s economic participation.
Figure 1: The probability of individual i being in the labour force category j
where, αj is a constant and βj is a vector of regression coefficients for
j = 1,2· · · j-1. Xi′ is a vector of covariates that predict the probability of
being in a given labour force category.
The estimation equation:
P R(LFij ) = αi +β1 ∗veiling−i+β2 ∗religion+β3 ∗domtasksi +β4 ∗childcarei +
β5 ∗ elederlycare1 + Xβi + errorterm
where, j = labour force status (working or expenditure-saving, relative to
OLF) for the ith woman, where the X vector includes the standard variables
used in the literature: age, age squared, rural/urban residence, educational
categories, marital status, and household size.
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5 conclusion
[1] This survey, offers a profound examination of women’s persistently low
labor force participation, unveiling a complex landscape. Notably, it re-
veals that 28% of women engage in traditional employment, 23% in vital
expenditure-saving activities, and a striking 48% remain outside the labor
force, far surpassing the official 18% statistic, thus highlighting the short-
comings of conventional metrics. The key finding of the survey are: muslim
women were more likely to be outside the labour force than Hindu women
and less likely to be engaged in expenditure-saving work. Like religion, veil-
ing did not make a difference as to whether women were in the conventional
labour force or not, but, unlike religion, veiling increased the likelihood of
participation in expenditure-saving activity rather than being outside the
labour force. Married or educated women are less likely to be in the conven-
tional labour force than divorced or illetrate women but more likely to be in
the expenditure saving activity. The other important insight offered by the
study relates to the effects of women’s unpaid domestic, marriage rather than
motherhood is the main constraint on women’s participation in conventional
work responsibilities.
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6 Division of work
1. Aditi Vishwakarma: Introduction
2. Bhawana Tomar: Section 2
3. Vaibhav Singh: Section 3
4. Kinjal and Anshul: Section 4
5. Rachit Choudhary: Conclusion
References
[1] Ashwini Deshpande and Naila Kabeer. “Exploring the distribution of
women’s work between income generation, expenditure-saving, and un-
paid domestic responsibilities in India.” In: (2021).
