Unpaid Care Work:

Time to Recognise, Reduce and Redistribute

Deepta Chopra
20 May 2015
The views expressed in this paper are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Asian Development Bank
(ADB), or its Board of Governors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and
accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. The countries listed in this paper do not imply any view on ADB's part as to sovereignty
or independent status or necessarily conform to ADB's terminology.

CARE
Meeting the material and
or/developmental/emotional
and spiritual needs of other
people through direct
personal relationships

Fundamental
Premise
Fundamental premise
Care has a widespread, long-term, positive impact
on wellbeing and development, it underpins all
development policy & is critical to ensuring
sustainable economic empowerment of women and
girls & addressing inequality and vulnerability.

Significance of UCW in Womens Lives

Occupies large amounts of womens and girls time -restricting participation in civil, economic and social
spheres
Lack of leisure time -- reduction in women and girls well
being
Drudgery ....adverse health outcomes
Income from paid work....eroded with costs of care
substitution
Economic empowerment through paid
work...individualised, limited and unsustainable
Who cares when women work in paid jobs ....reduction of
care, adverse outcomes for care recipients

Links between UCW and WEE

WEE is not simply about labour force

participation, but also about the choice to work,
the choice of sector, location and working hours

UCW impacts on the type, location and nature of

paid work that women and girls can undertake

Links
Discrimination in the labour market:
Women more likely to stay at home rather than work in paid economy:
Formal sector jobs usually located in cities or places far away from
residence
high costs and time for transport
low wages and high costs of childcare
Undertaking paid work close to home allows women to mind their
children, cook meals and care for elderly relatives, without incurring
additional time and financial cost

Correlation between womens stages of life and entry into the

labour force:
Increase in womens household responsibilities, either through marriage
or childbearing, leads to many women either withdrawing from the
labour market; finding more flexible, part- time jobs; or entering into
self-employment that offers more flexible time management.

What is the problem?

Unpaid care work is UNEQUALLY distributed
Unequal distribution of care undermines womens and girls
rights, limits their opportunities, capabilities and choices and
impedes their empowerment.

Unpaid care work is INVISIBLE

In Policy Intent and implementation
In Research Political economy analysis of processes; M&E,
impact evaluations
In Programming entry points, integration/ mainstreaming
(women-related and general programmes)
Amongst donors, government officials, researchers
In budgeting - It has INADEQUATE INVESTMENT

Findings: Invisibility in SP and ECD policy

No of policies
reviewed

No. of policies
which have a care
intent

No. of countries
that these policies
were from

Social Protection

107

23 (21%)

16 (out of 53) SSA

and LA

Early childhood
development

270

41 (15%)

33 (out of 142) LA
and SSA

SP: Main focus on redistribution of care responsibilities from the family to

the state. Nothing about redistribution within the family; only 2 about
reduction of drudgery
ECD: Focus is on support for carers in terms of better parenting, including
the inclusion of men as fathers. Redistribution to state mainly based on
recognition of women working outside the home in paid jobs; No policy for
reduction of drudgery
http://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/2795/bitstre
am;jsessionid=26091DD43F6653874EFB06A98CA57843?sequence=1

The Care-Less budget

Findings: Unpaid care is largely Womens

Findings: UCW is largely womens work
work?
http://www.actio
naid.org/whatwe-do/womensrights/unpaidcare-work

Making care visible in Public Policy

http://interactions.eldis.org/unpaid-care-work

Policy asks: Gender sensitive poverty policies

http://interactions.eldis.org/unpaid-care-work
What needs to be included in policies so that they are gender sensitive?

Policy Asks
Recognise* care and care work
Reduce difficult, inefficient tasks
Redistribute responsibility for care
more equitably - from women to men,
and from families to the
State/employers
Representation of carers in decisionmaking
as a precondition for achieving
womens political, social and
economic empowerment, and for
addressing poverty and inequality

* Three Rs of Unpaid Work Prof. Diane Elson 2008

Examples of care sensitive interventions

1. Recognize
Government census includes care work, unpaid work, time-use surveys
Education - appreciation of carers, school curriculum
Development actors - (Unpaid) care documented with time use diaries, stories
Media radio spots, TV, posters, street theatre, viral emails

2. Reduce
Available, accessible time & labour-saving devices; infrastructure development

3. Redistribute
Women to men: men learn cooking, do cleaning, child care, elder care
Families to the state/employers:
Increased care budgets; employers -childcare, health, maternity, pensions; small
infrastructure (water, electricity, sanitation facilities)
Away from poor women & families:
Small infrastructure & services in poor communities; domestic workers rights

Taking unpaid care work into account into

policies and programmes has the potential
to significantly strengthen the empowering
outcomes of current WEE strategies.

Accounting for UCW in WEE

Optimise womens economic participation, by enabling them
to work without deepening their time poverty, or worrying
about the amount and quality of care their families are
receiving.
Share the gains of womens economic empowerment across
all females in the family, so that younger girls and older
women are not left to carry the burden and be disempowered
as a result.
Sustain the gains of womens economic empowerment across
generations, by ensuring that the quality of childcare improves
rather than deteriorates, as a result of their mothers paid
work.