Women in the urban regions of the country do not go outside their homes until it is highly important to do so. As per the Time Use Survey (TUS) of the National Statistical Office, across Indian cities, 53 percent, which is more than half of the women do not go out of their homes daily. While this is true among 14 percent men.
Professor at IIT Delhi, Rahul Goel, is researching about the difference in the lives of men and women, on the basis of time use. Goyal says that right since their childhood, the family members of a female are reluctant to send her out of the house. He added that women aged between 25 and 44 do household chores for an average of 8.5 hours daily, while males do the same for an average of 1 hour. This is another reason why women are not able to go out of their homes.
88 percent of the males in this age bracket go out of their homes daily, while only 38 percent of urban women go out of their homes every day. The study has also revealed that after marriage, the chances of women going out of the house get reduced, while those of the males increase. Other than working women, only 30 percent of the other women are able to go out every day. Goel further said that in the time use survey of 18 cities across the USA, Australia, Europe, and Africa, female mobility was found out to be 76 percent, while male mobility was 79 percent.
Another study took place across 15 countries of Europe, in which the mobility of females was found to be more in every country except in Lithuania. Ashwini Deshpande, Professor, Ashoka University, said that in Pune city, women going out of the house is equivalent to men going out, while the share of women in the city’s workforce is not much here as well. She added that as far as mobility is concerned, there is equality among men and women only in the state of Goa.
