The Invisible Care: Is India’s Emerging Care Economy Addressing the Power Dynamics of Unpaid Labor?

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10 Mar

Posted by: Pankhuri Jha

Category: Miscellaneous

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The Invisible Care: Is India’s Emerging Care Economy Addressing the Power Dynamics of Unpaid Labor?

Caregiving or domestic labor is an essential part of being. In India, it holds a cultural significance. From time immemorial, taking care of your beloved has been intrinsically attached to human relationships. The role of caregivers, especially in South Asian history, comes with various layers of cultural traditions and colloquial practices. As the institution of family also includes members that are dependent, such as children and the elderly, their care is a responsibility that one bears.

Moreover, the household is structured in such a manner that it renders certain members of the house as caregivers, the majority being women. Caregiving is not merely an obligation but also a social expectation deeply rooted in the multigenerational home. In fact, often the duties of caregiving surpass immediate family, they go beyond extended kin, neighbors, and even the community at large, reiterating the collective care.

At one end, we have nurses, domestic workers, and midwives, or ‘Dai-ma’ as commonly known in India, who are paid and earn a minimum wage, on the other, there is a huge mass of unpaid laborers of love, who spend their entire lives taking care of their kin with no substantial financial compensation. This leads us to a question: is caregiving a mere unpaid obligation that is invisible, that one must perform as a noble deed without questioning, or if not, then how should we incentivize it?

The Essence of Caregiving and Domestic Work

“What does caregiving mean to you?”, I asked my mother curiously, as she has always donned the role of the primary caregiver in our family. She said for her, it means “to look after your loved ones, without any expectations or conditions attached.” Her unfiltered description made me think of all the times when she was confronted with the instances of sole caregiving, and what must have been like for her. She mentioned how, after becoming a mother, her job search took a backseat. Then I went ahead to ask my father what caregiving means to him, he responded, “raising children, taking care of the dependents like grandparents, parents, and doing so because it’s an intrinsic part of having a family etc.” The difference in their respective experiences of caregiving was the difference between sacrifices and societal expectations.

For women, motherhood is often perceived as the natural progression towards “complete womanhood”, an idea that has been challenged by feminists throughout the history. Caregiving, on the other hand, comes attached to the roles dictated for women. However, for men, the progressive stages of life involve building enough capital to secure their family’s future. This genesis of a traditional family has also been flipped in contemporary times, with working women who often juggle caregiving roles and men who participate equally in the care work at home. However, there still is a common social acceptance towards women undertaking the majority of household chores and caregiving responsibilities. Many times, these unsaid caregiving duties are rendered invisible due to the cultural acceptance and value system. Nevertheless, unpaid and informal care work also falls under the care economy.

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) defines care economy as “paid care work and unpaid care work provided by people as part of human survival, welfare and reproducing the labor force.” Another relevant definition provided by the International Labor Organization (ILO) describes the care economy as “exercises and relationships involved in achieving the physical, mental, and emotional necessities of kids and adults, old and young, physically weak and able-bodied.” Considered to be one of the instrumental aspects of a welfare state, the care economy encompasses not only healthcare, education, social work, elderly, and childcare but also includes work that comes under the purview of the informal sector, as mentioned in the above definition, unpaid work.

Where India Stands

According to the Government of India’s Economic Survey 2023-2024, the Female Labor Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) stood at 41.7%. While for men, the Labor Force Participation Rate was recorded to be around 78.8%. There can be many reasons behind the stark difference between both the rates, one of which is the traditional systems of paid and unpaid work. The way Indian families split up work at home has for a long time shown deep-rooted social rules often putting most unpaid care duties on women.

Although many encouraging efforts have been made by civil society organizations, activists, and altruists in India to address this, the reality of our everyday life remains the same. Therefore, to balance this power dynamic, uplifting and enabling women to participate in the paid workforce, providing necessary skills and education, incentives, and childcare facilities can help more pragmatically.

Cinema’s Portrayal of Care

Art imitates life, and so does celluloid, well, on most occasions. Cinema acts as a hyperreal mirror to society. It also aestheticizes real life as well as imagined social interactions as we consume it, letting it sit with us for days, months, and even sometimes for decades. Care has also been depicted in many notable films as a form of love language, a way of life, and a burden. Recently, a 2024 film named Mrs., directed by Arati Kadav, based on the 2021 Malayali film The Great Indian Kitchen, portrayed the raw and frustrating side of unpaid work that homemakers, mainly women, perform after marriage. The monotonous mundanity of daily chores and the added emotional abuse by her family members sparked a stir of emotions and empathy amongst the people who watched it. Social media was flooded with the discourse on how women bear the unpleasant brunt of this unnoticed labor. The impact of this film in the form of rage and reflection created a positive influence on recognizing care and unpaid labor. The series and films on the same lines are a crucial part of current dialogue, driving social change by highlighting the often-overlooked issues of domestic labor and caregiving, thereby influencing public opinion and behaviors.

Strategic Pathways to Enhanced Care

International organizations like the International Labor Organization, the United Nations (UN), and so on have been developing a multitude of frameworks to address the emerging sector of care work. ILO’s report titled ‘Decent Work and the Care Economy 2024’ provides a framework to expand the discourse. The 5R Framework for Decent Care Work elucidates an integrated strategy that includes – Recognizing, Reducing, and Redistributing unpaid work and Rewarding and Representing paid care work. This approach seeks mainstream care in other significant policy areas by advocating specific laws, policies, and programs for a robust care economy.

The UN’s ESCAP primer on ‘How to Invest in the Care Economy’ provides a unique ‘Triple R framework’ to tackle the uncertain issue of unpaid care. As the name suggests, the three Rs stand for recognizing, reducing the drudgery and time spent, and redistributing care work from women to men or others.

Closer home, the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, along with several eminent organizations like the Gates Foundation and Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), has been working towards formulating an inclusive strategy to improve and augment India’s care economy. Their efforts are directed towards livelihood generation, allocation of funds towards care infrastructure like childcare, elderly care, domestic work, and early childhood learning, building the capacity of women care workers, and further enabling the private sector investments towards rebuilding the care infrastructure. This would include providing safe and affordable childcare services like daycare, encouraging CSR funding and entities to improve elderly care centers, and enhancing the capacity of care workers by providing them with skill training and accentuating their expertise. Thus, frameworks, primers, and research provide a blueprint for the approach, ultimately, it is the formal creation of an overarching policy, schemes, their implementation, and last-mile delivery that will ensure social transformation.

A Collective Approach Towards Robust Care Economy

Caregiving isn’t just an individual challenge; it’s a societal one that affects all of us, it is also a socio-economic imperative. To make meaningful progress, we must collaborate, support each other, and work together in harmony to address this issue effectively, ensuring that everyone receives the care and compassion they deserve. To secure sustainable livelihoods for care workers as well as recognize the unpaid care work undertaken by women in India, it is necessary to improve care infrastructures for women who want to participate in the workforce, public-private partnerships should be capitalized upon as they can accelerate the development of this emerging economy.

Various private-public partnerships can contribute to the development of systems that would not only assist care workers and care providers but also ensure that the quality of services provided by these organizations is raised to meet the necessary standards. For instance, the utilization of PPPs can enhance access to health and education infrastructure where care workers get the required resources and training, which in turn enhances the quality and efficiency of care services.