WUNRN
http://www.eldis.org/index.cfm?objectid=79399A4D-D91C-44AA-FF1B63E8AC361515#.VModt3ktHmI
The
Invisibility of Unpaid Care & Why Care Matters - Gender
Unpaid care forms a vital service and is the bedrock of many societies. The
work undertaken sustains both households and the physical and psychological
wellbeing of its members, as well as contributing to the functioning of the
market economy.
Unpaid care work also cross cuts with many other international development
issues including human rights, education, HIV and AIDS, health more broadly,
nutrition, social protection, migration and climate change. It is also relevant
to almost all aspects of gender equality. In other words, it is an issue so
fundamental that it should be considered in all development interventions,
across all sectors.
However there is a reluctance to engage with care issues and its adverse
impacts on gender equality. For some, care is perceived as secondary to more ‘important’
development issues such as income generation or education, even though it is a
major obstacle to both. Others argue that women naturally belong to the realm
of family, or that women’s care- giving roles are specific to local culture and
are best left alone. Some shy away from meddling in the ‘private realm’ of the
family. This ignores the fact that, as many feminists have persuasively argued,
and as is explicitly recognised in the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) what goes on in the private realm
is political.
For governments, particularly in contexts of severely constrained state
resources, it may be that the care work provided without charge by family
members offers a conveniently low-cost form of welfare provision.
This reluctance to discuss and engage in issues of unpaid care work reinforces
care’s invisibility and the way it is undervalued in society. Whilst these are
not new concerns, the problems surrounding the provision of care are becoming
more pressing in the light of emerging ‘care crises’ in many parts of the
world.
At the root of these crises is the decreasing availability and willingness of
women and girls to do unpaid care work which is linked to positive trends such
as rising female educational achievement and aspirations, and increases in
female participation in the labour force. The crisis resulting from the
diminishing availability of female caring labour is exacerbated by the
reluctance of most men to take up a larger share of unpaid care work, coupled
in some cases with the reluctance or inability of states to provide affordable
and accessible welfare services.
At the same time, everyone has the right to care and the need for care is
escalating in many regions – most notably in low - income countries heavily
affected by the HIV pandemic and in high and middle income countries with large
ageing populations. The economic crisis has also squeezed public services
placing more burden on care providers, many of them women.