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Social Norms, Gender Roles and the formal workforce, or quit jobs to
take care of children and the elderly
Time Use: Multigenerational in multigenerational households.
However, scholarship on household
Households in India division of labor has tended to focus
on married couples in nuclear families
Aseem Hasnain and Abhilasha Srivastava only, the dominant household structure
in advanced industrialized nations.
nlike Hollywood stories, marriage is not just In developing economies, multigenera-
the beginning of the happily ever after, but tional households are common. These
Ualso the starting point for a number of hard households accommodate three to four
generations and make joint decisions
questions. Who will go out to work? Who will do about consumption and division of
household chores? Who will look after the kids and labor. Further, gender norms govern-
ing the multigenerational family differ
elderly? And so on. According to the Nobel laureate substantially from a nuclear family, as
economist, Gary Becker, the answer to these questions there are multiple actors, both male
comes from an unlikely but dependable source: and female, with varying roles and
expectations living as one unit. In such
division of labor. His idea that rational calculations living arrangements, women under-
may underpin romantic relationships goes back to take a disproportionately heavy load of
unpaid care work as there are almost no
the 1970s when Becker first proposed an economic market substitutes for such work; there
model of marriage, arguing that marriage was based is poor infrastructure; and food security
on the principle of division of labor, and that gains is an ongoing concern. In India, the
multigenerational, patriarchal, patrilo-
from marriage were determined by how efficient this cal household is the prevalent form of
division was. The one with comparative advantage family, and about 312 million people
at earning wages would go out and work; and the live in such an arrangement. A typical
multigenerational household includes
other person would do the chores and stay at home. the husband’s parents—father-in-law,
mother-in-law, the husband (son), his
However, this model was contested by Time use data, which was collected by wife (daughter-in-law), and their chil-
feminist, institutional, and social econ- national statistical survey organizations dren. Usually, the father-in-law makes
omists who claimed that the couple based in individual countries since the unilateral decisions about consumption
negotiated division of labor under the early 1980’s, came in handy for this expenditures and distribution of public
influence of social norms, institutions, purpose. This data revealed how much goods within the household, while the
biases, and power relations. This article time individuals devote to activities mother-in-law makes decisions about
uses time use data from India to show such as paid work, unpaid work includ- division of labor. She passes on most of
how household division of labor is not ing household chores and childcare, the household work to the daughter-in-
simply a rational or objective decision leisure, and self-care activities. This law, according to traditionally estab-
based on individual’s capacities to earn data helped researchers in improving lished gender roles. The son (husband)
wages in the market, but a complex their understanding about how people is usually the primary breadwinner, and
function of social norms and notions made decisions about time and how it his wife (daughter-in-law) is subordi-
about expected gender roles. affected their well-being. Surprisingly, nate to her husband as well as to her
time use data also revealed a global
Over time, household division of labor parents-in-law.
and its implications for individual well- reality: despite an increase in married In India, the multigenerational house-
being became an important area of women’s labor force participation, they hold creates the greatest restraint on the
study for economists and sociologists did disproportionately more unpaid daughter-in-law’s freedom. The typical
alike who were interested in studying work than men. This anomaly was Indian bride enters a patriarchal family
work-life balance, resource alloca- starker in the Global South where a through an arranged marriage, where
tion, and bargaining within the family. large number of women never entered she is expected to become obedient to

10 Bridgewater Review