Care Economy
Care work, paid and unpaid, is characterized by enormous asymmetries between women and men, with women continuing to provide a larger amount of care than men across all societies. The impact on women’s opportunities, lives and well-being can be severe. Care responsibilities make it difficult for women to take up decent paid work, or leave many women working a ‘double day’, while also creating obstacles to their participation in the public and political sphere. In the context of the global financial crisis (in particular) and other global challenges (such as growing poverty, food crises, climate change, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and ageing populations), care crises are escalating. The misleading but generally accepted assumption is that women are dedicated to care by nature and that they have enough time and capacity to meet growing care needs with little support from the state. Alternative development concepts and economic structures, like a care- and provision driven economy, in which women have always been key actors, are persistently being marginalized. And moreover, global and local care regimes are establishing new unequal divisions of labour among women of different classes, for example, as poorer women - often migrants - take on the care work that wealthier women are not able or willing to do. Development programs should address care work systematically in all fields of action, and give special attention in programs for local, economic development, governance and income generation.
Links:
WIDE Switzerland: Women in development europe
Publications:
SDC, IZFG, Caritas 2011: Added Value, contributions to gender equitable economic development.
Report of the UNRISD Conference 2009: Political and Social Economy of Care
UNRISD Research and Policy Brief 9 2010: Why Care Matters for Social Development
