Fertility Transition and Gender Equity in India an Examination of Time-Use Survey Data-2019

James Kuriath, Tulane University Newcomb Institute
Anita Raj, Necomb Institute Tulane University
Priyanka Patel, Tulane University Newcomb Institute

The fertility transition is expected to be positively associated with gender equity, according to the experience of most countries. India is now experiencing rapid fertility change, with some of the states reaching replacement-level fertility two to three decades back. However, how far the fertility transition is leading to gender equity is not clearly investigated, except for the sex ratio imbalance, which received wide attention. It is argued that fertility transition first leads to institutional-based gender equity in terms of parity in education and employment, followed by family-based gender equity in sharing responsibilities at home. With institutional-based gender equity not appearing to be strong in India, there are alternative explanations of how the family dynamics of having only daughters could potentially pave the way for a more gender-neutral environment. However, the dynamics of how institutional-based and family-based gender equity operates in India remain underexplored. This study, using data from the time-use survey carried out by NSSO 2019, carries out a detailed account of the sharing of unpaid household responsibilities between men and women. More importantly, the study investigates how the number of children and paid employment of women outside home play a role in sharing unpaid domestic work at home.

Keywords: Gender Dynamics, Fertility, Families, Unions and Households, Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination

See extended abstract.