In this paper, we attempted to unpack the effect of the burden of unpaid domestic work among adolescents and young adults from UP and Bihar and its influence on different educational outcomes. Our series of analyses yielded several key findings. At the foremost, we found that a greater time spent on unpaid domestic duties by the adolescents and young adults was related to a lower likelihood of continuing education (dropout and current enrolment status). This corroborates the findings from previous research from Andhra Pradesh, which showed that not engaging in more than two hours of domestic work and paid work at age 12 was associated with a greater likelihood of completing secondary education among young adults [25]. A huge amount of time spent in unpaid domestic chores could lower the potential for academic growth through increased stress or lesser availability of time for homework and other academically productive work, likely resulting in poorer educational outcomes.
This supportive finding from our research is critical for a few reasons. The 2020 National Education Policy (NEP) report [26] highlighted that the gross enrolment ratio (GER) for standard 6–8 was about 91%, which dropped subsequently for secondary and higher education. While a few previous research have looked into the determinants of school/college dropouts, acknowledging multiple factors [11], what has been largely missing from the traditional measurement approaches is the adequate decoding of labor-force work, which frequently excluded unpaid domestic work that could have potential effects on schooling outcomes [27]. For instance, we could only locate one study by Singh & Mukherjee [27] in Andhra Pradesh, who used time spent on unpaid domestic work as one of the determinants in assessing continuing education.
Such research is more critical when focused on girls, who the societal norms drive to do domestic chores in the household and are often not captured or measured adequately as “work”. In our research, we also hypothesized that the burden of time spent on unpaid domestic work on school outcomes would be more for girls, compared to boys. Indian boys, could have more privileges, compared to Indian girls which they could leverage to achieve better school outcomes. For instance, recent research from India have shown that educational spending of family members favored boys to girls [28]. This could be due to the evidently strong son preferences within Indian households [29]. We found some evidence of this. An additional hour of time spent on unpaid domestic work had a greater burden for girls, while for boys, the effect was almost neutral. However, we could not find any statistically robust differences in the effect of time spent on unpaid domestic work on the other educational outcomes across gender, while the direction of effect still highlighted the greater burden among girls. One reason for this could be low statistical power in our sample.
We also found strong evidence of time spent in productive academic work to moderate the effect of time spent on unpaid domestic work on the outcomes. We found that with more time spent on academic productive work, the negative effect of time spent on unpaid domestic work on dropouts and current school/college enrolment was mitigated, accounting for the covariates. This suggests that while interventions targeting the reduction of excessive time spent on unpaid domestic work is required, newer interventions could also be (re)formulated around increasing efficient time consumption for academic productive work such as time for homework, tuitions, and vocational trainings. Our descriptive findings also highlight that such time spent on academic productive work was gender-disproportionate with about an average of 1.87 hours being spent by boys compared to only an average of 0.78 hours spent by girls. This translates to the inference that boys had more privilege of spending time in productive academic work to mitigate the effect of time spent in unpaid domestic work on their continuing education, reaffirming the gender norms in the India society.
We not only focused on continuing education outcomes, but also explored the role of time spent in unpaid domestic work with school absenteeism. This was important because according to previous research, there has been a gap in the enrolment of students and regular attendance among students, including chronic absenteeism [30], which could be associated with greater school dropouts [31–33]. We found that greater time spent on unpaid domestic work was associated with greater likelihood of absenteeism. This is important because demands for adolescents’ engagement in household work (whether paid or unpaid) is inevitable in the Indian context, especially among households who experience financial constraints or sudden shocks such as death of family members [34]. Previous research has also shown the disproportionate gender effects on school absenteeism, likely driven by the disproportionate time spent by girls (compared to boys) on domestic work such as water fetching [35]. Our findings corroborate this, although this finding was not statistically significant, likely due to statistical power challenges highlighted before.
Our final set of outcomes were on two widely used learning outcomes: proficiency in reading (Hindi) and arithmetic problem-solving ability. This set of analyses was carried out in the sub-sample of respondents who were ever enrolled in a school/college. Similar to the findings discussed above, from our fully adjusted models, we found that one hour of additional time spent by the respondents on unpaid domestic work was associated with about 4–5% lower likelihood of having proficiency in reading and arithmetic problem solving. One pathway to explain this is through the increased psychological health issues of doing unpaid household work, as documented in earlier research that used the same dataset [36]. We argue that excessive time spent on unpaid domestic work could create a stressful environment for the young respondents, which could further affect their cognitive functioning [37], resulting in poorer learning outcomes. Therefore, home becomes a suitable place for restructuring the domestic work for children [38], which when effectively balanced, could result in better cognitive development outcomes for children. It is also worth noting that while we could not find much statistical differences in these effects across gender, we found that an additional time invested by the respondents on academic productive work mitigated the above effect by about 2.5% for the outcome of proficiency in reading Hindi. However, we could not find any evidence for arithmetic problem-solving ability. One reason for this discrepancy could be the relational and differential dynamics between the two outcomes, which have been limitedly studied [39]. Previous study has found that better reading skills could clear the way for “at-risk children” to improving math skills [39]. Therefore, our statistically robust finding for one outcome still holds potential for explaining later effects on the other outcome: arithmetic problem-solving abilities. Further research from India is warranted to comprehensively explain this.
We included a host of covariates in our models which allowed us to also partially assess their relationship with the outcomes, controlling for all other covariates in the models. These findings which largely reconfirm earlier study findings enhance our confidence in our new findings from the study. For instance, corroborating previous research from India, we found that with increasing household wealth status, the likelihood of dropouts among the adolescents and young adults was observed to be lower [11]. Household wealth was also found to be a strong predictor for better learning outcomes in our study, likely suggesting the significance of access to better financial resources in this current context [40]. It is also likely that constrained financial environment in the household could demand extra investment of the children in the household to engage in paid or unpaid domestic labor [34], which in turn could result in lesser access to school/colleges.
We also found that age was a strong predictor of school dropouts, with older respondents reporting greater dropouts than younger respondents. This also follows earlier research from India [11, 41]. Another study [42] also have shown, using a large sample from a nationally representative survey, that drop-out of students increases sharply after the post-primary level, which could also be inferred from our results. This is worrisome because education has been a crucial factor for individuals to determine the type of work they do [41]. With the growing competitive market in India, it therefore becomes crucial to engage further research to unpack the nuances of the drivers (including motivation) to continue higher education. We also found that older respondents (who were enrolled in schools/colleges) were more likely to absent from their school/colleges compared to their younger counterparts. While age was found to have a negative relationship with the aforementioned outcomes, a greater age was associated with better learning outcomes in our study. This could be likely suggestive of the gradual increase in such competencies over time. We also found the partial effects of caste, maternal education, engaging in paid work in the last 12 months, and place of residence on our study outcomes, which largely corroborated earlier findings from India [4, 11, 25, 42, 43], thereby enhancing our confidence in the newer findings of the study.
Limitations and strengths
Our study had several limitations. First, we relied on the cross-sectional dataset of wave 2 of the UDAYA longitudinal survey because of which causal evidence was limited. This was because the UDAYA dataset at wave 1 one did not capture time-use data. However, our inclusion of the host of covariates increased our confidence in our results. Second, while our study findings are generalizable to the adolescents and young adults of the states UP and Bihar, it is not generalizable to the rest of India. However, given that UP and Bihar are two states which have witnessed poorer educational outcomes [44], our study in these two contexts provide promising findings that need to be further assessed in other contexts. We therefore urge the inclusion of time-use data in larger nationally representative surveys. Third, our time use data captured the time spent on diverse activities by the respondents for the previous day, which might be considerably different from their average days. Therefore, our study findings need to be cautiously viewed with the acknowledgment of this limitation.
Despite these limitations, our study has a few strengths. Our primary predictor time used in unpaid domestic work is a continuous variable captured through time-use data, which allowed us to assess the difference in the outcomes with unit change in time, as opposed to being a categorical variable. We argue that given that at most times in the Indian context, spending time in unpaid domestic work is inevitable, capturing the intensity of the burden of the predictor on the outcomes was a key strength. The second strength of our study lies in its intersectional approach. We did not just conceptualize our primary predictor as a determinant of the outcomes, but also went beyond at looking the differential effects of the relationship across gender, which was largely missing from previous literature [25]. Additionally, we went a step ahead to show how the time-spent on productive academic work could potentially moderate the relationship, taking a solution-based approach in our research.
Implications and conclusion
Continuing education is potentially one of the most important avenues for enhancing learning outcomes among adolescents and young adults. By unpacking the role of unpaid domestic work on educational outcomes, our findings highlight a novel pathway to ensuring better educational outcomes. While we argue that time spent on unpaid domestic work is at most times inevitable, because of financial constraints in the households or social norms, our findings highlight the importance of creating a balanced time expenditure in the household for the adolescents and young adults that ensures adequate spending of time in academically productive work. For socioeconomically disadvantaged children this becomes more critical, since other resources to achieve educational goals are often limited. We therefore also argue that providing intensified attention to them through arranging remedial classes, or by simply encouraging their participation in the regular class-based activities might stimulate their learning as a short-term measure. Previous research has shown substantial positive of remedial education among Indian students who were poor academic performers [45]. The role of non-governmental organizations can be emphasized here, with more targeted approach to create an enabling learning environment for the underprivileged children in gaining experience with educative sessions, counselling guidance, and engaging them in academic activities, especially in rural areas of India. Our findings also urge for policy-level actions with the aim at ensuring quality basic public infrastructure to all and to minimize the need for extended time doing routine household work.
At the same time, creating economic opportunities for girls’ post-education could go a long way in changing the social norms around undervaluing education for women. By providing pathways to employment, initiatives could challenge the entrenched gender roles within households and promote greater gender equality. Additionally, raising awareness about the negative impacts of the gendered division of labor is crucial. It can encourage a cultural shift towards valuing education equally for both genders and expanding the range of choices available to young women for paid employment.
Our findings also highlight the importance of time-use data in making informed policies [46]. Currently, we could locate only a handful of surveys focused on adolescents and young adults in India, that captures time-use data. The understanding of an adolescent’s life through time-use has many perks including unpacking the relative importance of time spent on different activities within and outside home, which could allow us to potentially assess many important public health and educational outcomes.
Finally, our study warrants the attention of future researchers in the area of education, public health, and gender to assess causal relationships of the research in context. Robust quantitative research is required to establish causality of the question in context. Further, qualitative studies (or mixed methods studies) could be designed to comprehensively document the effect. Such studies would be helpful in addressing the challenges and understanding the facilitators of motivation (and acceptability) of efforts to increase productive work time for children and young adults.
In conclusion, our study highlights the influence of unpaid domestic work on educational outcomes among Indian adolescents and young adults. It revealed that time spent on household chores was associated with lower school enrollment, greater dropouts, and poorer learning outcomes. These findings, therefore, underscore the need for targeted interventions to reduce the burden of unpaid work and promote balanced time management, enabling more productive academic engagement within the household. We finally argue that addressing these issues is crucial for enhancing educational achievements and seizing the demographic dividend in India, emphasizing the importance of gender-sensitive policies and support systems for the youth.