Affluent women enjoyed the services of maids, nurses, and domestic servants. The poorest women had to perform household chores as well as engaging in the labor force. There are undergoing significant changes among the middle-class group in performing traditional domestic roles where men started sharing household responsibilities. With the change in the Work environment due to the current crisis, Most Information Technology companies navigating the new formula of improving productivity and reducing expenditure on operational expenses by encouraging the workers to work from home. This will cause an additional burden to the working women through work expansion that increases the unpaid work hours.
According to Oxfam's study, unpaid work done by women globally costs USD 10 trillion a year which is 43 times the annual turnover of the World's biggest company "Apple".
HOW TO TREAT UNPAID WORK:
The unpaid work, namely, unpaid domestic service as well as
unpaid care of children, the old, and the disabled are predominantly women-centric
roles. Women bear a disproportionately high burden of unpaid domestic work and
care work in India.
The data from the National Statistical Office Survey conducted between January and December 2019 shows that more than 90% of Indian women participated in unpaid domestic work at home in 2019 compared to 27% of men. On the other hand, only 22% of women participated in employment and related activities compared to 71% of men. This unequal division of unpaid work between women and men is unfair and it deprives women of equal opportunities as men.
Recently, recognition of unpaid work and wages for housework has been the agenda of all political parties. Though it is a positive development, its implementation has many challenges such as affordability by the government and calculation of wages. It may hamper women from entering the workforce. It may reinforce the patriarchal norm of household work as only women’s roles.
Impact of unpaid work on women:
There is no recognition for unpaid work at the national database. It’s a 24-hour job without remuneration, promotions, or retirement benefits. It restricts women the other available opportunities in the labor market. It paves way for gender inequality and disparity between men and women. Girls are put out of the school when the money is not in the family to pay the pending fees in the school.
What can the government do?
● It
can recognize this unpaid work in the national database by a sound time use
survey and use the data in national policies. It is also important to recognize
the rights of domestic workers in the country.
● Accepting
household as a sector of the economy by incorporating in the GDP (a measure of
the total production and consumption of the economy) measure as a household
produces goods and services for its members.
●
Improving
technology to reduce the burden of work which involves better fuel for cooking,
better infrastructure, accessible basic health services, shifting some unpaid
work to the mainstream economy.
● Redistribution
of work between men and women by providing different incentives and
disincentives to men for sharing household work.
● Payment
of pension to old women (60+ years) to compensate them for their unpaid work.
There is a landmark judgment in China which allow women to receive compensation for housework she had done for the past five-year marriage.
Unpaid work and the CARE economy:
The unpaid work subsidizes the private sector and government. It subsides the private sector by providing it a human capital and takes care of the wear and tear of labor. On the other hand, it reduces government spending by taking care of the old, sick, and disabled.
Unpaid work is a privately provided public good that is
critical for the sustenance of the mainstream economy and needs to be
integrated with the mainstream economy and policies.
The companies supporting the Work from Home model must come forward to recognize the unpaid work done at household by their employee.
Doing so improves the productivity of unpaid workers, reduces their burden, and taps their potential in development, as the household could also be an important economic sector.
A rebalancing of current roles is critical to expanding the arena of paid work for women and promote women’s participation in the workforce.
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