Beyond Time-Poverty: Evidence on Gendered Negotiations of Unpaid Work, Self-Care, and Leisure in Rural India

Abstract

Worldwide gender gaps in time use are central to debates on unpaid work and well-being, yet most studies rely on additive comparisons that obscure how households negotiate trade-offs across time-use domains. Using state-level rural data from India's Time Use Survey 2024, this paper examines how gender disparities in unpaid work, self-care, and male employment jointly shape leisure inequality, and conceptualises leisure as a high-stakes outcome of gendered bargaining over constrained time. A quasi-Poisson regression on 29 rural state-level observations reveals a substantial baseline male leisure advantage of approximately 2.6 hours per day. Results show that increases in women's unpaid work or in men's employment narrow the leisure gap primarily by reducing men's leisure rather than increasing women's — indicating a non-linear time-poverty trap. The interaction between unpaid work and self-care gaps is positive and statistically significant: when men hold a self-care advantage exceeding 15.7 minutes, greater female unpaid burdens widen rather than narrow the leisure gap. An illustrative simulation highlights self-care protection as a critical policy lever. The findings underscore the need to shift policy evaluation from gap convergence to absolute gains in women's time and well-being, consistent with SDG 5.4.