It’s the city women and not the
rural who do more
domestic work. This unthought-of conclusion is thrown by a
survey on various activities of women including domestic work, conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) of India. This survey, carried out during 2004-05, was part of NSSO’s 61st round. More unbelievable is the fact that not only the percentage of women doing
household work in
urban areas is rising than that of those in the rural areas, but the percentage of urban women conceding that they are doing domestic chores as a matter of choice is more than that in rural areas; the respective percentages being 55% urban and 47% rural. To add to the surprise whereas only 27% rural women showed their willingness to accept to work at chores other than domestic, there were 30 % urban women willing to work from home if made available. Looking at the economic contribution of women to the household once again it is the rural women who are contributing more than their urban counterparts. The picture remains the same even if we consider the number of women spending maximum time carrying out domestic work viz.25% rural women against 46% urban.However, the number of women doing household work in the age group 30 to 44 years is equally high in rural (92%) as well as urban area (93%). But why do so many urban women do domestic work? The survey revealed that while the urban women said that there is no other member at home to carry out these duties, a majority of rural women gave social constraints as the reason for working at home. Only 7.8% of the total urban and rural women surveyed told that they do household work because they cannot afford to hire a helping hand.