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what_is_unpaid_care_work

Work is made up of both income generating activities and activities which do not generate income in the household and communities.

“Unpaid work” includes all non-remunerated work activities. According to the United Nations System of National Accounts of 1993 (SNA), this can be divided into two types:

1) Productive activities for household subsistence: e.g. crop cultivation, animal husbandry, collection of basic necessities like water and fuel and raw materials;

2) Reproductive activities for household maintenance: e.g. cleaning, washing, cooking, shopping, providing care for infants and children, older relatives or disabled/ill family members, and all volunteer work for community services.

As the global economy has conventionally been understood in relation to making money, much of the work that takes place outside the market economy is ignored (Eyben, 2011). The modern capitalist market system looks down on both these types of work because they do not produce a market income. Cash transfers are now commonly believed to be ‘as close as you can come to a magic bullet in development (Birdsall in Hanlon et al., 2010: 61).’ This is based on the liberal belief that people are reducible to market consumers, that markets are neutral and thus the poor need only money to negotiate their way out of poverty.

Nowadays it is also de rigour to champion the role of business in development. After all, if money is what counts and 70% of the world’s poor are women (earning only 10% of the world’s income), then surely we should be focusing our attention on ramping up women’s market participation and increasing their income?

While pennies from heaven can make a difference and business can indeed work for the poor, cash transfers often put mothers at the “service to the state” and business generally puts mothers at the service of the market, at the expense of the care economy. When men and women sell their labour and time in the market or in political life, children, infirm, disabled and elderly dependents lose out – their development suffers.

People are more than simply market consumers and producers, and it is the care economy that forms the bedrock of who we are and allows us to be productive members of society.

At household level, the unpaid care that women and girls support sick family members to participate in the “productive” labour force; it feeds and clothes that labour force so that they may actually be productive. It also provides a sanitary and healthy environment for the family so that they may continue to be productive.

This work builds the future for younger dependents, offering nurture, care and early childhood stimulation for infants, helping young children and adolescents with their homework and keeping them fed, clothed and healthy so that they may go to school and contribute to their society and participate as citizens now and in the future.

The care economy also helps maintain dignity for infirm, disabled and elderly family members that are unable to care for themselves, so that they too may be active members of the society.

In the market, this input at household level lowers the cost that employers must sustain to maintain employees and their families (Eyben, 2011). If it were not for their labour, employers would have to provide childcare services at work, provide food for staff and a whole series of subsides for the care services that are effectively provided for free.

Perhaps most importantly of all, unpaid care work subsidises the public sector, delivering raw foodstuffs, , cooking, serving and cleaning up for (school) children’s nutrition enhancement programs, fetching and carrying water, fossil fuels for sanitation and energy use in households, and childcare and eldercare, among others, especially public provision of such services is lacking or insufficient (Eyben, 2011). As Antonopoulos (2009) points out:

Unpaid care work entails a systemic transfer of hidden subsidies to the rest of the economy that go unrecognized, imposing a systematic time-tax on women throughout their life cycle (Antonopoulos, 2009).”

Unpaid care work contributes to economic growth as it effectively builds a productive and capable labour force. Failing to support carers damages the potential for growth (Eyben, 2011). In short, there is no production without reproduction, and the care economy is that motor for reproduction.

What is unpaid care work worth?

‘Unpaid (non-care) work is included in calculations of gross domestic product (GDP) and systems of national accounts and increasingly recognized in development programming and food security initiatives (Antonopoulos, 2009).’ However, unpaid care work has remained largely invisible in economic calculations, statistics, policy and political discourse; it is generally unrecognised and under-valued by policy-makers, legislators (IDS, 2013) and society generally.

Recent studies suggest that if this work were assigned a monetary value it would constitute between 10 and 39% of GDP (Budlender, 2008 in Razavi et al., 2012).[1] This alone suggests that GDP rather miss the point on “value.”

In 1995, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action highlighted the importance of tackling the unequal distribution of paid and unpaid work between men and women, as an essential step towards achieving gender equality. Notwithstanding, as UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona (2013) notes:

Across the world, millions of women still find that poverty is their reward for a lifetime spent caring, and unpaid care provision by women and girls is still treated as an infinite cost-free resource that fills the gaps when public services are not available or accessible.”


[1] For Canada, it is estimated at more than 45% of GDP (Harvey and Mukhopadhyay, 2007); for the United States, 42% of GDP. Japan ranges from 15 to 23% and for the Philippines 38% for the year 1997 (APEC, 1999); for Mexico and Nicaragua the figures for the years 2002 and 1998 are 21.6% and 30% of GDP, respectively (ECLAC, 2007).

what_is_unpaid_care_work.txt · Last modified: 2018/12/12 16:38 (external edit)