Climate Shocks and Women's Time Poverty in India

I study the effects of extreme climate events on women’s time allocation across three broad types of activities: unpaid household labor, paid labor and leisure using two case studies of flash floods from Bihar and Kerala in India. Using data from the 2019 Indian Time Use Survey, I employ seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model to compare time spent by married women on unpaid household work, paid labor force participation and leisure activities before and after flood shocks occurred. Key results show that married women faced double burden of paid and unpaid labor in the aftermath of climate shock. Married women in affected districts increased their unpaid household work by 10 to 12 hours per week compared to those in unaffected districts after the floods. More specifically, married women spent an additional 9.8 to 10.5 hours per week on unpaid domestic chores and 8.9 to 18.1 hours per week on unpaid care work for other household members. In case of paid labor, women increased their participation by 4 to 5.6 hours per week. In particular, women spent 4.7 to 7.4 hours per week in workforce and approximately 1.4 hours per week searching for jobs in affected districts after the floods. Consequently, there was little to no significant increase in time available to them for leisure or self-care activities in the aftermath of the floods. The result remains robust after accounting for migration and poverty. Furthermore, geography, household technology and caste hierarchy influence the nexus of climate shock and women’s time poverty.