Capturing Women’s Work to Measure Better
Webinar | Online
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Organized by:
Institute for What Works to Advance Gender Equality
About the Event
Women’s work—spanning paid and unpaid work—is often misclassified or excluded due to the male-centric survey design and data collection process, rendering their economic contributions invisible in policy frameworks. This study addresses the systematic discrepancies of capturing women’s work in conventional labour force surveys, which stem from methodological limitations such as narrow employment definitions, reliance on single-question assessments, and biases in proxy reporting. To bridge these gaps, we implemented an innovative survey framework across Karnataka and Jharkhand, surveying 4,000 women (18–60 years) and 800 men (18-60 years) using multi-stage stratified random sampling. The electoral-roll based sample ensured proportional representation of rural-urban populations and age cohorts (18–24, 25–34, 35–60), with men surveyed from every fifth household to analyse perception biases in proxy reporting.
Methodological innovations included probes on women’s willingness to work; comprehensive questions calling-out economic (paid and unpaid), domestic, care and leisure activities to record their participation; time-criterion assessments to quantify participation across diverse tasks, and; parallel male surveys to measure biases in proxy reporting. Results demonstrate that these adjustments significantly improved the capture of women’s labour participation compared to traditional surveys. The male survey identified systemic underestimation of women’s economic roles by 22–35% in proxy responses.
These findings underscore the need for gender-inclusive survey redesigns to better reflect women’s multidimensional contributions. The proposed framework offers a scalable model for integrating granular, bias-adjusted labour data into policy, enabling more equitable resource allocation and recognition of women’s economic agency.
Methodological innovations included probes on women’s willingness to work; comprehensive questions calling-out economic (paid and unpaid), domestic, care and leisure activities to record their participation; time-criterion assessments to quantify participation across diverse tasks, and; parallel male surveys to measure biases in proxy reporting. Results demonstrate that these adjustments significantly improved the capture of women’s labour participation compared to traditional surveys. The male survey identified systemic underestimation of women’s economic roles by 22–35% in proxy responses.
These findings underscore the need for gender-inclusive survey redesigns to better reflect women’s multidimensional contributions. The proposed framework offers a scalable model for integrating granular, bias-adjusted labour data into policy, enabling more equitable resource allocation and recognition of women’s economic agency.
Speakers
| Name | Title | Biography |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Sona Mitra | Director (Research and Policy) | Dr. Mitra has been working in the area of women and development for the last one and a half decades. Her core research interests are in areas related to women’s economic empowerment. She has looked extensively into the causalities of low work participation rates of women in India within a political economy framework and has studied in great detail the gender gaps in the existing labour-force surveys conducted by the Government of India. Sona completed her masters and PhD in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her doctoral thesis looked at the relationship between macro-economic growth and women’s employment in India since the 1990s. Prior to joining IWWAGE, Sona has worked with the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), National Institute for Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), and Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS). She has been an independent consultant with UN agencies working on women’s empowerment and has been a technical adviser to studies conducted by the Action-Aid, UN Women (India), and ICRW. She also teaches a course on Labour and Development under the Master’s in Economics program at Ambedkar University, Delhi, and regularly publishes articles in peer-reviewed journals, chapters in books, and opinion pieces in leading newspapers and magazines. |
| Dr. Bidisha Mondal | Senior Research Fellow | Dr. Mondal has worked extensively in various dimensions of socio-economic inequalities. Her core research interests lie in analyzing gender gap and discrimination faced by marginalized social categories in Indian labour market. Besides, she has thoroughly studied the trends in healthcare expenditure among Indian households and various kinds of inequalities existing there. Bidisha has completed her masters from University of Calcutta and Ph.D. from Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her doctoral study looks into various kinds of labour market segmentation in Indian manufacturing sector. Before joining IWWAGE, Bidisha has worked with National Institute of Public Finance and Policy for more than four years. Her research works got published in many peer-reviewed journals of national and international repute. |
| Prakriti Sharma | Research Manager | Prakriti is a Research Manager at IWWAGE. She holds a Post Graduate Degree from TERI School of Advanced Studies in Sustainable Development Practice. As a researcher, she has worked for organisations such as IFAD India, UNICEF Uganda and NITI Aayog where she has conducted on-field research studies, supervised primary and secondary data collection, led and conducted desk reviews, performed data analysis and co-authored various reports. Throughout her career, her core research interests have been gender and livelihoods. |
| Aneek Chowdhury | Research Associate | Aneek Chowdhury is a Research Associate at IWWAGE. He has completed his bachelor’s degree in Economics from Heramba Chandra College (City College South), University of Calcutta, and a master’s degree in Economics from Ambedkar University Delhi, His current focus revolves around a comprehensive study on Capturing Women’s Unpaid Work. Aneek’s academic journey has nurtured a keen interest in areas such as game theory, social choice, and political economy. |