Back in college, I was taking a gender studies class. I thought I was going to nail it, but then the professor asked me, “How many of your family members work, and what do they do?” I shamelessly replied, “Two. My father is an advocate, and my sister is a teacher.” But what followed embarrassed me. “And your mother?” she asked me, and I said she’s a housewife. The conversation proceeded, and she went on to explain how patriarchy has convinced us that “housework” isn’t work even if it takes the same amount of effort and time, if not more (it really does take more). When calculated, the value of women’s unpaid work comes out to be ₹5.4 lakh per month, according to Shruti Deora, founder of Abhiyaan Wealth.

The price of love and duty

We usually dismiss housework as love and duty, but is it? Cooking, cleaning, managing a house, raising kids, and taking care of the sick are all job descriptions for cooks, cleaners, nannies, and nurses. These people charge money to provide all of these services. Being a stay-at-home mom isn’t considered a job, but if you do a little research, you’ll realise it actually is the toughest job. And not in a sense of glory or sentiment.

Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines a job as “a piece of work or a task for which someone receives regular payment.” In the literal sense of the definition, being a homemaker is a job. The only thing missing is monetary compensation.

The mathematics of housework

If you still want to argue that being a homemaker isn’t a job, let the math show you the truth. Shruti Deora, founder of Abhiyaan Wealth, calculated the monthly salary of a homemaker for a Tier-1 city like New Delhi.

This is how much an average stay-at-home mom in Delhi or any other tier-1 city should earn every month. And ₹5.4 lakh isn’t a small amount. If women who handle the home start getting paid, most of them will out-earn their husbands. Despite the effort they put into their jobs, they barely have financial assets or the freedom to handle their finances. Indian women’s unpaid domestic work is estimated to be around 40 per cent of its current GDP, while globally it is only 13 per cent. Similarly, Indian women spend 84% of their working hours on unpaid domestic labour while men spend 80% of their working hours on paid work. The disparity is huge.

Indian society hardly values women’s unpaid work while being entirely dependent on it. It’s time we make sure that homemakers have more financial assets, financial freedom, and a say in the financial matters of the house.

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