Social divisions and the gender division

Detail

1. NCERT's frame: social differences and democracy

• Social division means a lasting split in society based on an identity such as gender, religion or caste.
• NCERT's core claim: social diversity does not threaten democracy.
• Social differences can show up in politics, and sometimes this is a good thing.

• When a group voices its demands in politics, the group can be included rather than pushed out.

• Three cases compared:

Division	How widespread	Effect of bringing it into politics
Gender	Found everywhere	Mostly positive, because women's movements won rights and representation
Religion	Widespread	Mostly negative, because it can lead to communalism
Caste	Special to India	Both good and bad: it gives voice to the disadvantaged, but it can also lead to casteism

• Links to other chapters:
• Power-sharing: democracies make room for social groups by sharing power among them.

• Outcomes of democracy: a democracy is judged partly by how well it handles social diversity.

• The theory behind this section (the sex–gender distinction, patriarchy and feminism) is covered in the political theory notes on equality and social justice.

2. The gender division

• Gender division: a hierarchical (ranked) social division between men and women. Men are placed above women in power, status and opportunity.
• The common belief: people often treat this division as natural and unchangeable.
• NCERT's correction: it does not come from biology. It comes from social expectations and stereotypes about what men and women should do.
• Biology decides sex. Society decides gender roles.
• Gender roles are made by society, so society can change them. This is why politics can change them.

3. Sexual division of labour

• Sexual division of labour: work is split by gender.
• Women do all the housework, or organise it through domestic helpers. This means cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, tailoring and looking after children.

• Men do the work outside the home.

• Proof that the split is social, not natural:

• Men happily do the same jobs once they are paid for them.

• Most tailors and hotel cooks are men.

• Women also work outside the home:

• Rural women fetch water and fuel and work in the fields.
• Poor urban women work as domestic helpers in middle-class homes.

• Middle-class women work in offices.

• The key point: most women do paid work as well as housework, but their work is not valued or recognised.

• Result: women play only a very small role in public life and politics.

4. Public–private distinction and the "double burden"

• Public–private distinction: the idea that women belong to the "private" sphere (home and family) and men to the "public" sphere (paid work, markets and politics).
• The feminist critique:
• Housework is treated as "not work" because it is unpaid.
• The line between public and private keeps women out of decision-making.

• What happens inside the home, such as who does the work or domestic violence, is a political question, not only a private one.

• Double burden: a woman does paid work outside and most of the unpaid housework, so she works two shifts while only one is counted.

• NCERT's illustration: the cartoon "Mummy says I don't work". The mother works all day at home, yet she is described as "not working" because her work earns no wage.

5. Time use surveys: measuring unseen work

• Time use survey (TUS): a survey that records how each person spends the 24 hours of a day: paid work, housework, care, learning, leisure, sleep and so on. It is the only household survey that can capture unpaid domestic and care work, which national income accounts leave out [2][3].
• NCERT's table (1998–99 pilot survey in six states):

Daily time (hours:minutes)	Men	Women
Income-generating work	6:00	2:40
Household work	0:30	5:00

• In that pilot, women worked a little over 7.5 hours a day and men about 6.5 hours. Women worked longer, but most of their work was unpaid.

All-India surveys by the National Statistical Office (NSO), MoSPI

• First all-India TUS: January–December 2019. It covered 1,38,799 households and 4,47,250 persons aged 6 and above. The press note was released on 29 September 2020 [3].
• Second all-India TUS: January–December 2024. It covered 1,39,487 households and 4,54,192 persons. It used the UN classification ICATUS 2016 and computer-assisted interviews (CAPI). The report came out on 28 March 2025 [2].
• Method: each person describes the 24 hours from 4 a.m. the day before the interview. The day is split into 48 slots of 30 minutes [2][3].

TUS 2019 (persons aged 6+, all-India) [3]

Unpaid domestic services for household members	Men	Women
Share who took part in a day	26.1%	81.2%
Minutes per day per participant	97	299
Share of the whole day	1.7%	16.9%

• In 2019, women who did paid work ("employment and related activities") averaged 333 minutes a day, against 459 for men. Only 18.4% of women did such work on a given day, against 57.3% of men [3].

TUS 2024 (persons aged 15–59, all-India) [2]

Activity	Men	Women
Took part in paid activities	74.5%	24.9%
Minutes in paid activities (per participant)	421	305
Took part in unpaid domestic services	30.4%	92.9%
Minutes in unpaid domestic services (per participant)	86	305
Took part in unpaid caregiving	21.4%	41.0%
Minutes in unpaid caregiving (per participant)	74	140
Unpaid domestic minutes averaged over everyone, whether they did the work or not	26	283

• What the 2024 data show:
• Averaged across all women and all men aged 15–59, women spend about 11 times as long as men on unpaid domestic work (283 against 26 minutes) [2].
• Among persons aged 6 and above, women who do unpaid work spend 363 minutes a day on it, against 123 for men [2].

• MoSPI states that domestic and care work "continues to be borne by the female members", though men's participation has risen [2].

• Comparison with NCERT: the 1998–99 pilot gave a household work gap of 5:00 against 0:30. A quarter of a century later, the all-India gap is about the same size.

6. Why this matters: the wider debates

• Valuing unpaid work: unpaid domestic work is outside the GDP production boundary. In UN terms (System of National Accounts 2008) it is non-SNA production. In 2024, 93.9% of women aged 15–59 did non-SNA production, against 45% of men [2].
• Care economy: this means paid and unpaid work spent caring for children, older people and the sick. Women carry most of it, which limits the time they have for paid jobs, education and politics.
• Female labour force participation rate (LFPR): the share of women aged 15 and above who are working or looking for work.
• It rose from 23.3% in 2017–18 to 41.7% in 2023–24 under the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), usual status [4].

• Even so, it remains far below the rate for men.

• Link to politics: when women are tied to the home, they have less time and less public visibility. This is the reason behind demands for reserved seats for women in local bodies and legislatures, covered in the next section.

Prelims Hooks

• NCERT's three-way comparison: gender is universal and its politicisation is mostly positive; religion is widespread and its politicisation is mostly negative; caste is special to India and has both effects.
• The gender division rests on social expectations and stereotypes, not biology. Trap: the option "the gender division is natural" is wrong.
• Sexual division of labour: NCERT's evidence is that most tailors and hotel cooks are men, because men do "household" jobs once they are paid.
• NCERT's time-use table comes from the 1998–99 six-state pilot, not from an all-India survey.
• First all-India TUS: NSO, January–December 2019. Second: January–December 2024. Activities are coded under ICATUS 2016 [2][3].
• TUS measures 24 hours from 4 a.m. in 48 slots of 30 minutes each [2].
• TUS 2024, ages 15–59: 92.9% of women and 30.4% of men did unpaid domestic work. Participants spent 305 minutes (women) against 86 (men) [2].
• Female LFPR (PLFS, usual status, 15+): 23.3% in 2017–18, rising to 41.7% in 2023–24 [4].
• Unpaid domestic work falls under non-SNA production, so it is not counted in GDP [2].

Mains Points

• Gender is socially made, so politics can change it. NCERT shows that the sexual division of labour is social, not natural. This supports state action: women's reservation in local bodies, legislative quotas, and laws on equal wages and maternity benefits. The rise in men's domestic participation between the 2019 and 2024 surveys shows that norms do shift [2].
• Invisible work weakens citizenship. In 2024, women aged 15–59 spent on average 283 minutes a day on unpaid domestic work, against 26 for men [2]. This "time poverty" limits women's paid work, education and political activity. It helps explain why women have a minimal role in public life even with equal voting rights.
• Policy options: count unpaid work through regular time use surveys and satellite accounts (separate accounts that value unpaid work without changing GDP); invest in care infrastructure (crèches, eldercare, piped water and clean cooking fuel to cut the hours spent fetching and cooking); and run campaigns for men to share housework. The aim is to turn rising female LFPR (41.7% in 2023–24 [4]) into decent, valued work.
• Limit of the data: TUS gives a snapshot of a single day and counts minutes, not the intensity or value of work. Policy also needs PLFS data and household-level care data. The debate is still open on whether to pay for or reward care work directly, for example through cash transfers to women.