16.4 billion hours are spent by women worldwide on unpaid care work daily.
This is equivalent to 200 crore people in the world working eight hours per day, without payment.
Well, that's clearly the biggest reason for women, globally, falling off the workforce.
Dear India Inc. and everyone, let's talk about women, their unpaid work, and time poverty.
The International Labour Organisation puts the value of this work to 9% of the global GDP, which is equivalent to $11 trillion.
In India, the value of women's unpaid labour is close to 40% of our GDP. Women in India spend 352 minutes per day on unpaid labour vis-a-vis just 52 minutes by men. That's a whopping 577% more unpaid work being performed by women.
Unpaid work hours refer to the time that is spent on domestic and caregiving activities, without receiving any compensation or remuneration. This includes doing household chores, caring for elders and children, cooking, cleaning and other activities.
Not only are women not paid, there is no recognition of the hours they are putting in. An Oxfam report says people think if a woman is not able to perform her household chores properly, there is no harm in pulling her up. It's constructive criticism after all!
Many argue that why are we getting into such complicated statistics. After all, this work is also essential. The reason for this conversation is simple: Women carry most of the burden of unpaid labour and face financial losses as a result.
The burden increases to a point where women either don't work or leave their jobs mid-career. If she can't work, how will she rise to leadership positions, how will she contribute financially for herself, her family and the country's GDP.
According to an IIM Ahmedabad research, women in the age group of 15 to 60 spend close to 7.5 hours daily on unpaid labour. Working women also spend a lot more hours than men in performing unpaid labour, leading to what's called ‘Time Poverty'.
The ILO has estimated that 2.3 billion people, mainly children and elderly, will be in need of care by 2030. While there will be an extra 100 million older people, there will also be 100 million children—aged 6–14—needing care by the same year. The cost of providing this care is likely to push women, in particular, deeper into economic and time poverty.
Unpaid work is recognised as a critical barrier to gender equality and women's economic and social empowerment.
A Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy survey revealed that around 39% of women lost their jobs during the pandemic due to several reasons, including an increasing demand for unpaid domestic work put on them by their families. The burden of unpaid work falls disproportionately on women in India because these tasks are highly gendered and ruled by patriarchy.
And because these tasks are highly gendered, you can see it in our policies. Paternity leave remains a joke.
Dear India Inc., implement policies that support work-life balance for women—flexible working arrangements, paid parental leave, work from home options that allow women to balance paid work with unpaid care work.
Policymakers can take steps to measure, recognise and value unpaid care work as part of the economy. This includes recognising the contribution of unpaid care work to society and ensuring that women are not penalised for taking time off from paid work to provide care.
Watch the full video here:
Mugdha Kalra is a journalist with over 20 years of experience. She is a renowned inclusivity expert and was chosen as one of BBC100Women, 2021.
The views expressed here are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of BQ Prime or its editorial team.
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