Women's Labour

The fi erce debates surrounding the issue of unpaid domestic labour in the 21st century have resulted in political parties promising to monetise the work undertaken by housewives in India. The recent “Time Use in India 2019” report released by the National Statistical Offi ce adds to the discourse that problematises the disproportionate differences in domestic division of labour between women and men. This article uses the larger fi ndings of the NSO survey to probe the pattern of time-use at the national and state level that may be explained by pre-existing gender norms and behaviours.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the fragility of global advances towards gender equality, thus foregrounding the inherent difficulty of achieving sustained progress within the constraints of a patriarchal system. In this paper, we explore this issue in greater depth, focusing on Ireland, widely heralded as a progressive and increasingly secular state, but one still steeped in patriarchal norms enshrined in the Constitution. Accounting for the influence of this foundational document, we examine women’s economic participation, including the impact of the pandemic response, and domestic violence. This paper argues that the pandemic response has reinforced Ireland’s patriarchal structure, stalling, and, in some cases, threatening progress towards gender equality.

This paper employs a social reproduction framework to argue that the two main institutions of capitalism—the markets and the state—have failed to adequately provide for the working people of India during the pandemic while fostering gender inequities. While the demand for gender equity in the domestic sphere and the workplace is not new, the pandemic further underscores its urgency.