Held back by homes: effects of domestic work on occupational choices of women in India

Prevalent gender norms in India assign the primary responsibility of performing unpaid domestic and care work within households to women, hindering their labor market participation and limiting their occupational choices. Using data from the Time Use Survey 2019, this paper estimates the effect of the burden of domestic and care work on the occupational choices of women engaged in full-time work in India. We employ a latent class model to classify women into distinct groups based on their time-use patterns, effectively capturing the burden of domestic and care work and their level of engagement in economic activities. We then estimate the effects of the burden of domestic and care work on occupational choices using Propensity Score Matching. Our findings confirm that women's employment type and industry choices are influenced by their unpaid domestic and care workloads. Notably, women with a heavier burden of domestic and care work demonstrate a preference for self-employment compared to casual labor or regular wage or salaried employment. Additionally, we find evidence suggesting a heightened inclination toward female over-represented industries among women with heavier unpaid domestic and care workloads, leading to the deepening of occupational segregation of women in the labor market.