ResMed, a global health technology leader, recently revealed in its fifth Global Sleep Survey (India) that people are losing at least three nights of restorative sleep each week. (Representative)
Mar 10, 2025 13:35 IST First published on: Mar 10, 2025 at 13:35 IST
By Moumita Alam
When did you last sleep well? People often ask me this question, after seeing the dark circles under my eyes. These dark circles never go away, because I never sleep well. How can I? As a working woman who is a single parent — the primary caregiver of my daughter — I suffer from time-poverty. I don’t have time to eat properly or to sleep properly. I have to work all the time. As a person living in a semi-urban area, neither do I earn well enough to avail myself of 24×7 household help, nor do I have professional daycare facilities near my workplace. After the drudgery of a long day at work, the word “empowerment” seems like a myth.
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ResMed, a global health technology leader, recently revealed in its fifth Global Sleep Survey (India) that people are losing at least three nights of restorative sleep each week. And, as expected, the report suggests that women experience poorer sleep quality than men. According to the report, they experience fewer nights of good sleep per week compared to men (3.83 vs. 4.13). They also struggle more with falling asleep (38 per cent vs. 29 per cent), with hormonal changes being a key factor. Menopause significantly impacts sleep, with 44 per cent of menopausal women worldwide struggling to fall asleep at least three times a week, compared to 33 per cent of non-menopausal women. In India, women (17 per cent) are more likely than men (12 per cent) to take sick leave due to poor sleep.
Clearly, women are suffering from a sleep crisis. But why? A big reason is that women remain the primary caregivers in the family, for both children and elderly people. Having a steady job does not relieve them from the domestic chores. With rising inflation and the growing aspirations of neoliberal market economy, in many households, women are allowed to work outside the home on the condition that domestic chores and child-rearing are not disrupted. In places like Mumbai, it is common to see women chopping vegetables for dinner during their evening commute back home (Nilanjana Bhowmick, Lies Our Mothers Told Us). With the constant ticking of a clock in their ears, it’s no wonder that women don’t sleep well — to cope with the workload of the home and the workplace, sleep is the first thing to be sacrificed.
In the last few decades, a phrase we’ve often heard is “women’s empowerment”. We teach our daughters to be financially independent and pursue careers, but we have never tried to put in place a mechanism that can relieve women of the burden of household chores. Neither have we taught our sons to share these responsibilities. “Women’s empowerment” thus becomes nothing short of the exploitation of women’s labour.
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The government too has not focused on the creation of a proper ecosystem for women in workplaces or at home. How many government-run creches do we have? Women are always worried at the workplace, leaving their children with nannies who might be inefficient or careless. Some are forced to leave their children with their parents back at home.
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Sleep poverty is particularly a problem among lactating mothers. In the first few years of motherhood, sleep is a casualty. Often, the maternity leave that is sanctioned is not enough. And with the mass privatisation of jobs, maternity leave policies are becoming more regressive. Women employees in some states get CCL (Child Care Leave) for two years till their children turn 18. But every female employee knows how tough it is to get CCL approved, with a male-dominated leadership posing a significant hurdle.
Ground realities in India are often grimmer than what data reflects. There is also a lack of good data — with the diversity that India has, it’s very difficult for any organisation to give almost near-perfect data. But just look at the dark circles under women’s eyes. They tell us what we need to know. Let women sleep.
Alam is a poet and writer based in North Bengal
