More Pay, More Chores: Relative Earnings and the Division of Housework in India

Intrahousehold bargaining and gender display theories are often invoked to explain disparities in housework, yet the absence of earnings data in time-use surveys has limited empirical comparisons in India. Using the Time Use Survey (TUS) 2024 and Periodic Labor Force Survey (PLFS) 2024, this study examines how relative earnings shape housework allocation among dual-earner heterosexual married couples (N = 18,039). A machine learning model trained on PLFS 2024 was applied to classify couples in TUS 2024 into three relative income categories, which were then used in regression analysis. Results show that women reduce their housework share when earnings are comparable to their husbands, but increase it when they out-earn them, consistent with gender display theory. Men’s contributions remain minimal across all earning levels, indicating that housework is allocated among female household members rather than between spouses. The analysis also indicates that women leverage relative earnings to reduce overall domestic workload through labor-saving technologies such as cooking gas and washing machines.