The last time she slept for eight hours straight was before her daughter was born a year-and-a-half ago, Ashwetha Anil remembers. That now seems like an impossible luxury. Back at work at an IT firm after a six-month maternity break, her infant still wakes up at least once a night for a feed. At other times, says Anil, “She wakes up and just wants to play.”

Welcome to the world of the chronically sleep-deprived, where sleeping for an eight-hour stretch seems positively utopian. Nobody has it easy, not men, not women, and yet, even here, there is a marked gender gap.

Using the government’s 2024 Time Use Data of 450,000 Indians, analysis in Mint by Tanay Sukumar finds a gender sleep gap with young Indian women sleeping 30 minutes less than men.

Less than half of young women manage eight hours of shut-eye. Among men it’s 60%.

Regardless of whether they are in rural or urban India, women wake up nearly half an hour earlier to begin their chores: Get the kids ready for school, prepare tiffins, make breakfast and generally kick-start the day. This is true for home-makers as well as employed women. Home-makers though have the luxury of day-time naps to catch up on their sleep.

The gender sleep gap, finds the analysis which is the largest-ever sleep pattern survey, kicks in during adolescence when girls begin to help out with household chores. From then on it expands to 30 minutes and continues........

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