Indian women's experience of household labour: Oppression or personal fulfillment

This article examines the time spent by urban middle class women in househo ld work with accompanying subjective states. Participants carried beeper wa tches for one week and reported their time spent in different activities wi th their subjective states, when signalled at random times. The findings re veal that women spend much more time doing household labour than their husb ands, but they experience choice over these activities and do not experienc e them as aversive. Women often report feeling hurried, but do not feel les s in control. Their emotional states neither suggest a high rate of distres s, nor a high feeling of self-filfillment while doing family work.