“White in the Moon the Long Road Lies, that leads me from My Love”: Widow’s Time use in India

Bereavement impacts the quality of life of the near ones, especially the spouse who has lost their immediate source of coping and support; yet how widows spend their time is underexplored in the case of developing countries. Utilizing India’s first nationally representative Time Use Survey, 2019 (TUS) the current study hypothesizes that widows and married women have different fallback positions and experience different responsibilities and constraints on their autonomy in intrahousehold time allocation. Findings show that on average, widows are less likely to participate in non-paid home production activities and less likely to engage in paid economic activities. Widows allocate fewer minutes per day to unpaid domestic services and care for adults and devote more time to childcare, tertiary activities like sleeping and eating, and discretionary leisure activities. Acknowledging the necessity of disaggregating female headship, the study also examines the path of adjustment by considering the headship status of women.