Norms that matter: Exploring the distribution of women's work between income generation, expenditure-saving, and unpaid domestic responsibilities in India

Ashwini Deshpande and Naila Kabeer

No wp-2021-130, WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER)

Abstract: Based on primary data from India, this paper analyses the reasons underlying women's low labour force participation. In developing countries, women engaged in unpaid economic work in family enterprises are often not counted as workers. Women are involved in expenditure-saving activities, i.e. productive work within the family, over and above domestic chores and care work. We document the fuzziness of the boundary between domestic and unpaid (and therefore invisible) productive work which leads to mismeasurement of women's work.

Keywords: Female labour force participation; India; Social norms; Unpaid labour (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-hme and nep-isf
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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