BEST OF PLAIN FACTS IN 2025

We continued to bring you incisive data-driven storytelling in 2025. Today, we revisit the best stories featured in Mint's Plain Facts section this year.

- BY TEAM PLAIN FACTS

Our coverage spanned several themes, from analysing the toll marriage takes on women's lives to the impact of US tariffs on India's exports, how India's macroeconomic data quality issues need to be read with nuance, the shifts Indian cinema has seen over the decades, how cash transfers to women have become a staple poll promise, and why air pollution continues to haunt north India. Here is a curated selection of our best work from 2025.

AN UNEQUAL MARRIAGE

THE SECOND edition of the government's time-use survey gave an insight into the daily lives and routines of India. Mint's close look at the data revealed striking insights into how Indian society functions, especially for married women.

Using granular data, our team unpacked the unequal structure of work, leisure, and even sleep. It showed that married women spend more than 25% of their day on unpaid domestic work, compared to 6% for unmarried women. The burden rises for men, too, but from 1% to 3%. The story quantified what Indian society has experienced for ages. Through a first-of-its-kind analysis of sleep patterns from the same survey, we found that women, burdened by household responsibilities, sleep significantly less than men.

Women's sleep deficit when compared to men expands to nearly 30 minutes in their 30s, when family duties peak. There is no gender gap in childhood and adolescence, and it starts appearing only later as men and women take on different gender roles.

TRUMP TARIFF TREMORS