Family time taking a huge beating in India

With nuclear families increasing, single income parent decreasing in India you wonder how exactly people spend time. I read an interesting article in Economic Times (April 24, 2011) about this topic, it is about a survey done by Technopak Advisors covering 1,500 respondents from SEC A & B households in top 10 Indian cities. For a country which has a population of 1.2 billion, 1500 may not be an accurate reflection of our lifestyle but I guess it is a good start.

Few takeaways,

• Indians are known to spend the time to save money, now they spend money to save time.
• The period 2005 to 2010 has shown a big jump in per capita income of Indians.
• Time spent on eating out has increased by 70% on weekends

Other findings on how time is spent on weekdays are shown in the table below,

Few items are not very clear. Wonder how people are able to spend more time on hobbies on weekdays, is spending time in traffic jams a hobby? Notable changes are on the internet (justifiable in my unbiased opinion!) and movies (thanks to DTH, IPL etc).

The worrisome figure is the “family” column. People are spending far less time on family. When both parents work I see the child taking a beating (on in physical sense). Nobody has time to spend with the kid on their studies or non-electronic games (board games). Parents are not doing it intentionally but work pressures leave very little time for family.

The one that worries me the most is our parents (elders). So many parents are seen helpless because nobody has time to take care of them, no wonder old age home business is going to boom in India.

• India has a huge phubbing problem