Patriarchy and the Pandemic: Housework Allocation Among Dual-Earner Urban Couples in India

Unpaid housework done by men and women in dual-earner households goes to the heart of gender inequality. We explore this issue for urban India during the COVID-19 lockdown when work from home spiked and housework increased. We examine the extent to which women’s responsibility for housework and help given by partners changed during lockdown and any systematic differences in chores done by men and women. We conceptualize and empirically measure base household-level patriarchy. This helps distill ‘real’ shifts in the gendered division of housework during the lockdown. Gender norms, access to domestic help, and women’s income mattered for partners’ willingness to take on additional chores. Although housework increased for both partners, women did more time-invariant tasks and men more time-variant tasks. This suggests women had to juggle paid work around domestic responsibilities while men experienced fewer impinging effects of increases in housework.