Who's doing the dishes? Bollywood film and government data have the same answer

A new Bollywood film - Mrs - has once again laid bare a stark reality: even in well-educated households in India a woman's role is often confined to unpaid domestic work.

The protagonist, married to a gynaecologist, finds herself trapped in an endless cycle of cooking, cleaning and caregiving. Her dreams are sidelined not by force, but by relentless criticism and quiet coercion.

While the film, which is a remake of the hit Malayalam movie The Great Indian Kitchen, has sparked conversation - and pushback, especially from men on social media - its themes resonate with hard data.

A recent government survey reveals that Indian women spend over seven hours a day on unpaid domestic and caregiving work - more than twice the time men do. Data shows that women spend 289 minutes on unpaid domestic work and 137 minutes on unpaid caregiving, whereas men spend 88 minutes on chores and 75 minutes on care work.

They also spent less time than men doing paid work and engaging in self-care activities.

What's disappointing is that the last such survey which came out six years ago had similar results. Despite the government launching campaigns to empower women, the situation hasn't changed much.

India's Time Use Surveys (TUS) track how people spend their time across various activities. Surveyors gather data nationwide by asking individuals aged six to 59 how they spent the previous day. The first TUS was released in 2019, with the second published last week.

When the government released findings from the second Time Use Survey (TUS), it highlighted two key shifts: women aged 15 to 59 spent 10 minutes less on unpaid domestic work, while their participation in employment and related activities rose by just over three percentage points.

The survey concluded this marked a "shift from unpaid to paid activities" for women - a positive sign that they were spending less time on domestic chores and more time in paid employment.

However, economists argue this isn't necessarily true. Even if it is, the slight drop in domestic work suggests women are still juggling paid jobs with a heavier load of unpaid work than men.

Ashwini Deshpande, an economics professor at Ashoka University, says TUS data should be analysed alongside India's Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) for a deeper understanding of how women spend their time. FLFPR measures the percentage of women aged 15 and above in the labour force.

According to government data, the FLFPR grew from about 23% in 2017-2018 to 37% in 2022-2023. Prof Deshpande says that this increase is not solely due to an increase in employment opportunities for women, but has also been spurred by economic distress.

"Women are not waiting for their time spent on domestic chores to reduce to take up jobs. Research shows that women want to work to supplement household incomes and so they end up working 'double-shifts', doing paid work outside the home and unpaid work inside," Prof Deshpande says.

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Indian women aren't alone in shouldering a disproportionate share of household and caregiving work - it's a global reality. However, the gap in time spent on domestic work is significantly wider in India.

Where globally women spend about 2.8 hours more than men on domestic and care work, for Indian women, this difference is closer to four hours.

Sociologists attribute this to India's deeply patriarchal society, which continues to enforce strict gender norms. Even among the educated elite, women remain confined by roles upheld and perpetuated not just by men, but also by women.

This rigid enforcement of gender roles doesn't just shape women's lives - it also shapes the way stories about them are received.

So, while Mrs struck a chord with many, it also faced sharp criticism - especially from men on social media.

A men's rights group accused it of "spreading toxicity" against traditional joint families, while others dismissed its premise altogether.

Kajol Srinivasan, a Mumbai-based comedian, says the film ruffled feathers because it held up an uncomfortable mirror to society.

She told the BBC how her father, who quit his job at 40 to take over household duties while her mother continued working, quickly realised that housework was no easy task.

"The first week he was excited; he cooked different dishes and deep-cleaned the house," she says.

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But then he began to find the work tedious and couldn't continue beyond a week.

"My father realised that housework was not just about work, it was also an imbalance in power. The power always stays with the breadwinner; no matter how well you cook, there are no accolades," she says.

She believes that women are expected and raised to accept this lower rung of power.

"When Indian men talk about what they like about their wives and mothers, it often has a lot to do with how much they have sacrificed for them or how much they take care of them or the home," Ms Srinivasan says.

India's Time Use Survey shows that social change is slow, and it may take time before women spend less on domestic work.

In the meantime, films like Mrs spark conversations around everyday questions many prefer to avoid - like, who's doing the dishes?