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transcript
Care Work in THE Asia-PACIFIC : ARE WE
recognizing, reducing and redistributing care?
Asia-Pacific Policy Dialogue on “Women’s Economic
Empowerment in the Changing World of Work” 23-24 February 2017, UN Conference Centre, Bangkok
Jo Villanueva, Regional Change Lead on Women’s Economic Empowerment, Oxfam in Asia
Key Questions
• The basics on care and why is focusing on unpaid care work important for women’s economic empowerment?
• How are we addressing gender inequality in the
care economy at micro and macro levels? • What is the role of different stakeholders (either
individually and/or together ) to realise large-scale progress in transforming care (the 4 Rs of care)?
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What is care?
• Care provision is an essential dimension of well- being, but under-recognized and undervalued sector of the economy
• Care has long been considered to be the ‘natural’ responsibility of women and the costs
of providing care fall disproportionately on women • Unequal care responsibilities are a significant
and fundamental driver of poverty and gender inequality
• Different understandings of care shape different care agenda • Current understanding of care and advocacy
Key care concepts Care - are face-to-face activities that strengthen the physical health and safety, and the
physical, cognitive or emotional skills of the care recipient (England et al. 2002, cited by Razavi and Staab 2012). Caring for people always takes place within a care relationship between a caregiver and a care receiver (Jochimsen 2003)
Unpaid care work - refers to the direct care of persons and housework performed within
households without pay, and unpaid community work. The term is used similarly to the ‘older’ terms ‘reproductive work’, and ‘unremunerated work that lies beyond the National Account boundary’.
Paid care work – provision of direct care and domestic work to others with pay The Care Economy - captures the idea that unpaid care work produces ‘value’ (and can
therefore be considered to be productive or economic), but is invisible to standard valuations of aggregate output. This is because most care ‘services’ are produced outside of market exchanges. As a concept, the ‘care economy’ is almost interchangeable with ‘unpaid care work’. Calls for a rethinking of economic concepts and standards for measuring economic acivities.
The Triple R Framework - recognition, reduction and redistribution of unpaid care work as put forward by Elson (2008), offers a framework for analyzing avenues for change
towards more just ways of distributing the costs and benefits of unpaid care work.
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“Care is critical for human well-
being. We all continuously receive
care, not just the weak, vulnerable.
We aim for quality care of persons,
and affirm the right of women and
men to give and to receive care.
“Care is: Meeting the
material and/or
developmental,
emotional and
spiritual needs of one
or more other
persons ...
How is unpaid care work linked to paid work?
• Shapes the kind of paid work that can be undertaken by women – unskilled, low –valued, low-paid and unsafe • Undermines women’s position in decision making, accumulating savings, building assets • Being regarded as women’s “natural work,” performed in the “private sphere”
-essentializes UCW, robs it of its socio-economic aspects and contributions
Source: Oxfam and APMDD
Chris Young/Oxfam
Hidden subsidies
Involves a “systemic transfer of hidden subsidies to
the rest of the economy that go unrecognized”
Households, in which a host of unpaid care work
activities take place are seen as consumption and
income units and not production units.
They are not recognized as the site of economic
activities although these lead to lower labor
costs/smaller wage fund, increased profits, increased
process of accumulation.
Imposes a “systematic time-tax on women throughout
their life cycle”. Source: APMDD Presentation
Investing in care…
• It is a critical precondition for achieving women’s political,
economic and social rights and empowerment.
• It has has a widespread, long-term, positive impact on wellbeing
and development
• Care is a ‘social good’, not a ‘burden’
• Care provision is critical to address inequality and vulnerability,
both care providers and receivers
• Influences productivity and economic growth
The four Rs – transforming care
• Recognise care work
• Reduce difficult,
inefficient tasks
• Redistribute
responsibility for care
more equitably - from
women to men, and
from families to the
State/employers
• Represent carers in
decision making
“Three Rs of Unpaid Work” Prof. Diane Elson 2008
Care: not a ‘woman’s burden’ but a ‘societal good’
How is Unpaid Care Work Being Addressed?
Global Evidence:
Care work is Heavy and Unequal
Who works more?
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Advocacy work of the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt
and Development (APMDD) - www.apmdd.org
• State-supported essential social services can reduce
women’s care labors and improve their quality of life. • Care work to be truly recognized as critical to human society
and should thus be a social and collective responsibility. • Care work must be integrated as part of a gender-aware
vision of the economy as the provisioning for all of human life, thus requiring the study of processes not only within and between the marketized parts of the economy and the government sector, but also those related to the non-monetized household sector.
Rapid Care Analysis – Oxfam projects in 20
countries UK
Bristol: Single Parents
Action Network, protecting
the rights and life chances
of single-parent families on
job-seeking benefits Azerbaijan
Barda: ‘SMART’
agricultural livelihoods
project and ending
violence against
women initiative
OPT
Gaza: Food processing
and ICT enterprise
development projects
Honduras
Copan: OCDIH, Nuevo
Amanecer, beans and
cornflour marketing
project
Guatemala
Rural Women's
Alliance, food security
campaign
Nicaragua
Chinandega,
Chontales, Leon:
Rural Women's
Coordination
Tanzania
Kishapu, Shinyanga:
Sustainable livelihoods
and sisal project
Sri Lanka
Omanthai and
Nedunkerney:
Sustainable livelihoods
in paddy and dairy
Philippines
Lanao del Sur,
Mindanao: Al Mujadilah
Development
Foundation (AMDF),
integral development
Bangladesh
Gaibandha: Gazaria
Union, sustainable
livelihoods in chillies
Nepal – post-earth-
quake recovery
Colombia
Patugó: Women’s
agricultural enterprise
project
Ethiopia, Uganda,
Zimbabwe, Zambia
Sierra Leone, Kenya
Malawi, Afghanistan
Example from Bangladesh
Women’s 84.5-hr
week Men’s 70-hr week
Unpaid
care
work:
57.75
Unpaid
care work:
7
Unpaid
community
work : 2
Unpaid
community
work: 3.5
Unpaid work
for producing
or home
consumption:
24.5
Unpaid work
for producing
or home
consumption:
7
Work to produce
products for
sale: 47.5-52
Work to produce
products for
sale: 0
Paid labour:
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Total work hours higher for women compared to
men
Women typically spend more time on unpaid care
work than on other forms of work (some exceptions in the Philippines)1
Women do significantly more simultaneous work than
men
Men had significantly more non-work time than
women
In all countries, focus group participants estimated
In all countries, focus group participants reported
Inequality in unpaid care was most acute between
younger women and younger men
Younger adult women do more unpaid care
than any other age group or category
After adult women, girls provide the most unpaid
care
Most Problematic Care Tasks
Focus group discussions identified problematic tasks
Water collection
Fuel/firewood collection
Meal preparation
Childcare
Other common activities mentioned were washing clothes,
accessing the grinding mill, etc.
Proposed Solutions
Improved access to water (piped water, water
tanks, water into houses) advocacy with
government
Fuel-efficient stoves (biogas, Lorena stoves)
Awareness-raising sessions to shift attitudes –
community dialogues, public communications
Electricity/solar panels
Other solutions proposed included cribs, family planning
and sharing responsibilities at the household level,
bicycles and air time (for mobile phones) for carers, and
childcare.
Collaborative interventions
Women’s
groups
Banks
Participants
identified
collaborations and
joint actions to
address care issues
Universities,
Schools
Government
ministries
Private
sector,
Employers
Local
government
Smallholders
Radio,
media
NGOs
Producer
groups
Religious
leaders
Traders
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Advocacy with local governments
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Complementary ways to address unpaid
care work:
1.Provision of accessible essential public services, including care services
2. Investing in time saving and labour saving equipment and infrastructure services
3. Investing in initiatives to shift perceptions, norms and gender roles and care
4.Provision of decent work for women that takes into account their unpaid care work responsibilities (e.g. Flexible work hours, decent and fair wages, maternity benefits, etc.)
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In the Pacific... Some reference points for the Pacific work on the Care economy:
Marilyn Waring (Counting Women’s Unpaid Work) who undertook a UNDP study in 2010 on ECONOMIC CRISIS AND UNPAID CARE WORK IN THE PACIFIC. See here http://marilynwaring.com/unpaidcarework.pdf
Under the Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development – IWDA study on
double burden http://www.pacificwomen.org/resources/the-double-burden-impact-of-economic-empowerment-initiatives-on-womens-workload/ . In addition – this Pacific Women facility (DFAT funded 10-year project) is looking at Women’s Economic Empowerment as one of its key focus areas.
DAWN - check out Claire Slatter, Yvonne Underhill Sem (she is the co-chair
of the Oxfam NZ board) and Noelene Nabulivou. Yvonne’s paper on “Mobile, youthful and gendered: the social dimensions of inequality in the Pacific” https://nzadds.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/pre-sids-yus-formatted-for-upload.pdf
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IDS Video
“Who Cares: Unpaid care work, poverty and women's / girl's human rights”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVW858gQHoE
What is the role of different stakeholders (individually or collectively) to achieve large-scale progress in addressing unpaid care?
What is the High-Level Panel?
The mission of the High-Level Panel is to inform action by government, business and civil society to address constraints to create opportunities for women’s economic empowerment
The UN Secretary-General established the High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment in January 2016 as part of his efforts to ensure that the 2030 Agenda moves from the pages of UN documents into the lives of women - and builds stronger, more inclusive economies
Luis Guillermo Solís, Costa Rica
Simona Scarpaleggia, IKEA
Fiza Farhan, Independent Advisor
Jim Yong Kim, World Bank
Guy Ryder, ILO
Amadou Mahtar Ba, AllAfrica
Alicia Girón González, Economic Research Institute, Mexico
Christine Lagarde, IMF
Elizabeth Vazquez, WEConnect International
Mitchell Baker, Mozilla Foundation
Justine Greening, UK Michael Spence, NYU
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Women
Renana Jhabvala, WIEGO/SEWA
Saadia Zahidi, World Economic Forum
Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzania
Sharan Burrow, ITUC
Sheikha Lubna Khalid Al Qasimi, UAE
Winnie Byanyima, Oxfam
Tina Fordam, Citi Research
Members of the HLP Represent Diverse Sectors
Systemic Constraints Contribute to Persistent Gaps
Changing
business culture
and practice
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niz
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HLP WG on Unpaid and Paid Care Work – emerging
recommendations to the 2nd report
Main Recommendation is to move towards universal access to care, which requires care to be seen both as a right and a development strategy. This necessitates: 1. Recognizing the importance of care for individual and collective wellbeing
and for national economies, as well as ensuring that paid care is decent work and is properly valued;
2. Reducing the disproportionate amount of time women spend on unpaid domestic work, particularly when it involves drudgery, by increasing investments in infrastructure; and
3. Redistributing care work between the household, the state and the market through care services and between men and women.
4. Ensuring that organizations representing all workers, including care workers, and women’s rights organizations, can represent their needs and concerns in decision-making fora in the workplace, the community .
- the policy arena will be critical if we are to guarantee that care is
incorporated into policymaking and that paid and unpaid carers have a voice in establishing quality care and decent conditions of work.
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Specific recommendations to... Member States • Invest in household surveys to gain a better understanding of individual
and household needs and the impact of economic policies on human wellbeing, data should be used to inform public policy.
• Recognize that heavy and unequal care responsibilities affect livelihood
strategies, employment outcomes, economic growth, and sustainable poverty reduction. Consequently, addressing women’s heavy and unequal care responsibilities should be incorporated explicitly into employment, macroeconomic policy and poverty reduction strategies, and into relevant public declarations, and addressed by increased public investment.
• Invest in infrastructure and technologies that simultaneously reduce time
burdens and drudgery, particularly for the poorest women and households, curb carbon emissions and create jobs. Investment in water pumps, electricity, clean cookstoves, mini-grids, publicly and collectively owned mills and grinding machinery, and transport all have the potential to reduce drudgery, increase the efficiency of care work and free up time for other activities such as paid work, income generation, education, leisure and self-care.
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Specific recommendations to...
UN Agencies, Multilaterals and IFIs • Incorporate relevant unpaid care indicators in annually published
economic databases and monitoring and evaluations systems for investment and lending, and fund others to collect and monitor relevant data on unpaid care.
• Incorporate commitments and measures to address women’s heavy and unequal care work in core organisational policies and strategies.
• Prioritise grants and loans to support the development of inclusive and sustainable, social protection systems, including national social protection floors, and include care as a central component of social protection systems including care services along with health care and pensions. sustainable in every nation, including the least developed.
• Prioritise grants and loans to support poorer member states to invest in basic care-supporting infrastructure and care services that are affordable and accessible to poor women.
• Provide technical and financial support to increase representation of carers through local women’s rights and workers’ organisations, and decision-making structures
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Specific recommendations to ...
Private Sector Organizations • Invest in designing, producing and/or distributing low
energy usage, affordable time and labour saving equipment accessible to poor women in low income countries.
• Promote the redistribution of care between women and men, through advertising campaigns, community-based behaviour change, and flexible work-life balance policies at work.
• Private and public sector entities and unions should actively promote care committees that address care needs and concerns within employer institutions.
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Specific recommendations to... Civil Society Organizations • Civil society organizations, workers’ and employers’
organizations should support the greater representation of paid and unpaid carers, including women and migrant carers, throughout national and local governance, including in traditional governance structures. Migrant women should have representation in countries of origin and destination.
• Donors and civil society organizations should support
workers’ organizations and women’s rights organizations to call for greater national investments in the care economy and the creation of more decent work opportunities for women and men.
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Asia Regional Stakeholder Engagement Meeting , 19-20
Dec. 2016, Bangkok
Key recommendations: The care economy recognizing, reducing and redistributing unpaid care work and paid care
1. Address inequality in unpaid care work through the provision of universal,
accessible, affordable and gender responsive public services such as water, sanitation, childcare, and health;
2. Unpaid care work should also be better accounted for in statistics and
included in the system of national accounts;
3. There is a need to advocate for policy changes in tax and fiscal policy that address gender discriminatory provisions, and that ensure adequate and predictable public resources for essential social service delivery;
4. There is a need to realize the rights of domestic workers as a key area for action in Asia. Majority of those who carry out domestic work are women who currently have insufficient legal or employment protections or wages. Governments ratifying ILO Convention 177 and 189, and civil society organising to call for this were identified as one priority in this area.
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