‘ Our daughter-in-law is like our daughter ’: women’s work commutes in India

Bargaining models underscore that autonomy within households depends on individuals’ fallback positions or threat points, which are shaped by kinship roles as much as by personal attributes. In South Asia’s patrilocal family systems, daughters-in-law often occupy weaker fallback positions, constraining their mobility and shaping labor opportunities. Despite commuting for work being a key link between women’s mobility and labor market participation, its relationship with affinal power relations remains understudied. This study bridges the gap by employing India’s first nationally representative Time Use Survey (2019) and a household fixed-effects approach, to compare commute time for work between unmarried daughters and daughters-in-law, highlighting that social norms restricting mobility are not uniform within gender. Findings show that daughters-in-law spend significantly less time commuting than daughters, with disparities most pronounced in urban and wealthier households, socially disadvantaged groups, and households where a mother-in-law is present.