A contentious discussion about work-life balance has been triggered by L&T chairman SN Subrahmanyan's proposal of a 90-hour workweek that requires Sunday work. A hilarious meme fest has been triggered by the controversial comment, with celebrities, business executives, and content producers all joining forces to mock the notion. His comments rekindled the discussion about work-life balance, which had been sparked by Narayana Murthy, a co-founder of Infosys, proposing a 70-hour workweek.
Subrahmanyan's comments, which support a 90-hour workweek, normalize the gendered division of labour and glorify excessive labour, making women's unpaid caregiving invisible. How much time are the wives allowed to gaze at their husbands? Get to the office and get to work, please. His remark is rooted in the long-standing gender stereotype that views men as the main providers of income, who must work outside the home, with women serving as the primary caregivers and being restricted to domestic settings.
But husbands should be doing more than just sitting around the house; they should be helping out with household chores, taking care of elderly parents, and raising kids. Women are disadvantaged by the rigid and conservative division of labour between men and women, as the responsibilities of the home limit their freedom, agency, and mobility. Women are disproportionately responsible for providing care, which not only increases their amount of unpaid labour but also makes it very difficult for them to get and keep a job.
The vicious cycle of unpaid work, stress and deteriorating mental health for women
11 billion hours a day, or three-quarters of all unpaid labour worldwide, are performed by women, who devote a disproportionate amount of their time to this task. Although there are income-related disparities within nations, women worldwide perform three times as much caregiving and household work as men. Because of ingrained patriarchal institutions and national accounting systems that do not account for women's overall contributions, unpaid care work is frequently seen as having little value and being invisible in mainstream economics. Both men and women worldwide have spent more time on caregiving and household chores during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the amount and intensity of this work has increased significantly for women. With increased and more stressful workloads during the crisis, women working for free are likely to be more susceptible to mental illness. Women's mental health needs to be protected immediately.
According to the report, one of the biggest obstacles keeping women from joining, staying in, and advancing in the workforce is unpaid care work. The quality of women's work and their likelihood of entering and remaining in paid employment are significantly influenced by their unpaid caregiving. Also diving deeper into the Indian statistics shows a clear gender gap in the distribution of time in both rural and urban areas. Men spend most of their waking hours in paid employment, whereas women spend most of their waking hours in unpaid work among people of working age (15–59 years). Women work 8.2 times longer than men in rural areas, and this difference is even more noticeable in urban areas, where women work 9.6 times longer than men in unpaid caregiving. Reiterating the chairman's words, one can know the underlying sense of patriarchal mindset that he holds, which abides by the conformation of women only being the caregivers, dismissing their authority as independent and competent individuals.
Patriarchal mindsets and the detrimental effects of gender biases
Women who are burdened with unpaid caregiving are frequently left economically vulnerable and reliant on their husbands for necessities. Their autonomy and decision-making power are severely limited by the vicious cycle created by this economic dependency. Women are best suited to perform unpaid caregiving because of their biological nurturing nature.
Another research says urban Indian women and girls spend more time providing direct care, such as childcare, elder care, and taking care of the disabled members of the household, even though they spend less time providing indirect care, such as cooking, cleaning, and house décor. Therefore, even though the concept of patriarchy is more or less the same in India's rural and urban areas, its impact on unpaid care work is still somewhat different.
Due to the fear of sexual harassment at work and the increased risk of domestic violence resulting from the failure to fulfil traditional gender roles such as childcare, cooking, and cleaning, many women, particularly those with children, refrain from accepting paid employment. Domestic and intimate partner violence rises as a result of social reactions to women who do not fit the mold of unpaid caregiving and household labour. Both men and women exhibit alarming acceptance of violence against women who neglect household and community-level domestic duties in various socioeconomic contexts in Africa and Asia.
In addition to increasing their exposure to gender-based violence, women's unemployment or increased casualization of their jobs can further solidify their role as caregivers making it more difficult to get out of it. Global estimates projected that for every three months of lockdown, there would be an extra 15 million cases of intimate partner violence as the pandemic left more women without regular paid employment, incomes, and unpaid care responsibilities.
Women continue to be economically reliant on men and contribute to the global feminization of poverty when they are unable to obtain paid employment. Because they cannot afford housing, healthcare, or even necessities for themselves and their children, women who experience abuse are frequently forced to stay in abusive relationships. Furthermore, because there are often no viable alternatives, those who do make an effort to leave are more likely to end up back in an abusive environment.
Subhramanyan’s comments - A time to reflect on our gendered disparity with work
In addition to trivializing the work required to maintain households, Subrahmanyan's comments reinforce negative stereotypes that support the gendered division of labour. By implementing gender-neutral, care-friendly employment policies, we can lessen the "pressure" of unpaid care work on middle-aged and highly educated women, who make up a significant portion of the labour force.
We can also increase the "possibilities" for women to enter the workforce by establishing new care jobs and encouraging "preferences" for women to perform unpaid care work voluntarily rather than in response to social norms and regulations. This can be achieved by redistributing unpaid care work among families and all economic agents of care. Holding public figures responsible for normalizing regressive ideas is essential to dismantling patriarchal narratives. It's time for caregiving to be viewed as a collective social duty and for social and economic structures to actively support women's independence and empowerment rather than continue to oppress them.