Time use survey
Topic: Gender, Religion and Caste in Politics · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 3 "Gender, Religion and Caste"
Meaning
A time use survey records how people spend each part of their day, such as paid work, housework, care and rest. It shows work that normal job data miss, especially women's unpaid work at home. In India the National Statistical Office (NSO) under MoSPI runs these surveys. It held all-India surveys in 2019 and 2024. The table in NCERT comes from an earlier pilot (trial) survey held in six states in 1998-99.
Example
In the 1998-99 pilot, women spent 2 hours 40 minutes a day on income-generating work and 5 hours on household work. Men spent 6 hours on paid work and only 30 minutes on housework. So women worked a little over 7.5 hours a day in total and men about 6.5 hours. The all-India surveys of 2019 and 2024 still show women doing several times more unpaid care work than men.
Don't confuse with
- Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS): the PLFS measures jobs and unemployment. A time use survey measures how all of a person's hours are spent, including unpaid work.