Getting Unpaid Care Onto Development Policy Agendas

Getting Unpaid Care onto Development Policy Agendas Online Discussion Report

As part of its “Women and Girls’ Empowerment Programme”, the Institute of Development Studies’ (IDS) is undertaking research into the care economy. Between 20 – 22 November 2012, Eldis Communities Platform facilitated an online discussion on the care economy. This report summarises the online discussion, which aimed to gain a better understanding of the challenges in getting unpaid care onto the development agenda. The discussions explored the following questions:

1. What do you identify as the political challenges of putting unpaid care onto the development policy agendas? What are the circumstances, which provide political opportunity windows to get care onto the agenda? 2. What arguments work in getting policy response to unpaid care? Why do these work? Which arguments fail and why?

The discussion had twenty-three participants, all of who were from research/academic, NGOs, and donor bodies, and had knowledge of or worked within the care economy.

Discussion 1: What do you identify as the political challenges of putting unpaid care onto the development policy agendas? What are the circumstances, which provide political opportunity windows to get care onto the agenda?

In particular, this discussion aimed to understand the political challenges faced when individuals interested in unpaid care work issues try to get unpaid care work on the policy agenda.

Political challenges raised in the opening message by the facilitators were:

1. The evidence that care matters is weak 2. The concept of 'care' is too vague/broad 3. Men don't care because women do it; rich women don't care because poor women do it 4. Addressing care is tricky because it involves tackling 'private' and 'cultural' matters 5. Addressing care is zero-sum and therefore not a strategic entry point 6. Addressing care is potentially so costly that policymakers will not even discuss it 7. Talking about care risks supporting the agenda of religious right/conservatives.

This led to very insightful and thought provoking discussions on political challenges, windows of opportunity, ways forward and specific strategies. Below is a summary of the major points made by discussants.

1 As unpaid care work has always been part of a structure of power relations and domination that have made it seem natural and therefore not a subject for policy intervention, what is needed is a wholesale re-organisation of the economy. Though the nature and practice of politics is important, awareness that unpaid care work is contextual in necessary to challenge the existing norms and practice around care.

Political challenges to getting unpaid care work onto the agenda include development practitioner’s inability to see unpaid work as significant and important to development. There is also an implicit value of paid work and rational self-interest which undermines understanding of care. Furthermore, while some visibility of the cooking and cleaning aspects of care exists, ‘relationships’ and emotional support remains invisible. There are also the multiple dimensions of care and its connection to many different policy issues (early child care, elderly home care, disabled care issues, domestic worker’s rights). While this creates many different opportunities for inclusion of care in policy agenda, these numerous entry points could also dilute unpaid care work. Given economic data’s precedence over social data, a further challenge included ensuring enough priority was given to the proper collection of unpaid care work data so it is not left off the political agenda.

The benefits of recognition and remuneration of unpaid care within paid employment are available only to a small group of ‘privileged’ people – those who have secure permanent jobs and are in the organised sector. While the burdens of unpaid care work is being increasingly borne by women in the informal economy, part-time work, home-based sub-contracted work, self-employment, contract labour, by domestic and care workers, by landless agricultural labourers, by older women – who often have no access to labour rights that cater to care needs. These are also disproportionately women of colour, from the working class, lower castes or ethnic minorities. These contexts make it very difficult to organise or mobilise these marginalised women (and men). It also begs the questions, ‘What are those innovative processes which allow women at the margins, who bear the highest burden for care, articulate their demands and put pressure on policy makers?” and “how can their emergence be supported?’ Finally, it was noted that the tendency to base the debate on Western centric economies and organisation of domestic work in families glosses over the historical significance of extra-familial domestic workers (servants) who are a major source of domestic labour in most developing countries.

Ideas for the Ways forward included visual representations, which ‘surprise’ people about what’s ‘missing’ from their usual representations of the real household/local ‘economy’. Communications about care also need to start taking into consideration a range of beliefs (negative and positive) and dimensions of care that need to be promoted (or challenged), so that development practitioners understand the significance and value of (unpaid) care. Positive beliefs and dimensions of care could include: valuing women, relationships, well-being, long- term perspectives, altruism-emotionality, valuing vulnerable people/elderly/children/ people with disability, valuing unpaid work, valuing ‘the private’-family, being together, believing care requires skills and creativity, valuing ethnic minorities, those-who-serve, working class etc.

2 A crucial challenge of valuing unpaid care and bringing it onto the policy agenda is unpacking the three different elements of care: unpaid domestic labour1, unpaid caring labour2, and unpaid labour force work3. In defining and framing ‘care work’ these three categories should be separated and not considered solely as ‘domestic labour’. The context of different kinds of economies and how activities are locally framed also needs to be considered. Focus must be placed both on the work done by individual caregivers - majority of whom are women - and the people such care is performed to. Having this data/evidence to show caregiver outcomes as determined by care recipient status, will make it easier to gather political support for care.

Suggestions were made to contextualise the discussions in terms of the range of different providers or domestic labour - both paid and unpaid - and their conditions, rewards, wellbeing and autonomy. That is any focus on unpaid care work- must be linked to 'paid 'care work. A suggested approach was to see both paid and unpaid care work, such as the production of citizens, healthy children, thinking and working adults on a daily and generational basis, as part of the output of an economy as the production of cars, weapons, sliced bread and firework displays. It is also important to avoid some of the essentialist positions that arose in debates about women and the environment - that is assuming that care work is women's responsibility, that it all takes place in the household by family members, is invisible and is done out of altruism or lack of alternative.

Finally, it was suggested that development policy and governments invest in the social infrastructure as well as the physical and economic infrastructure - particularly in the wake of the current (post) financial crisis and economic downturn.

A real window of opportunity was to explore the generation of a discourse that breaks the North-South divide about care. Rising poverty and inequality in the Global North as a result of the financial crisis was seen as a political opportunity to talk about care as an issue that is important for every country, not just low income countries in the South. Seizing this opportunity would mean working differently and making new alliances with organisations that are not in the development ‘sector’. Another opportunity identified lies in the political nature of this discourse which makes it more appealing. Such a discourse would open up possibilities for an international feminist narrative on care and compel us to think about opportunities for forging alliances and solidarity with movements and organisations in the North.

An example was given of AWID championing a growing movement that identifies feminist economic policy alternatives, offering routes to challenge current orthodoxies through collective action. There is also a movement within development research that focuses on poverty reduction in terms of 'wellbeing'. By measuring empowerment and progress by quality of life, rather than units of financial gain and growth, the movement asks what people need to feel content. Both offer entry points for a broader discussion of the changes needed for care to be part of economic models and policies that focus on the real, multi-dimensional lives of women and men.

1 cooking a meal, washing clothes, running errands 2 the relational as well as the direct and indirect care of people of dependents 3 unpaid family farm labour, subsistence agriculture, productive activities not remunerated financially

3 The on-going discussions on the post-2015 development framework offer an opportunity to bring unpaid care into the centre of debates.

On a national level, windows of opportunity from Bangladesh were highlighted including:  National legal instruments and policy, such as National Women development Policy 2011  The Government of Bangladesh’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) which calls for the calculation and accreditation of women’s contribution through their unpaid work, which might include unpaid care work. Although there is no mention on how it should be calculated.  Civil society demands that an article in Marriage Law which describes men/husbands/ as the main breadwinner and household head, and women/wives as housewife be changed. This article started and perpetuates the patriarchy culture in the society. Revising it, however, is challenging because of the dominant culture and religious practice including from the ministry.  A new version of the draft law on gender equality providing an opportunity to mention ‘care work/ unpaid care work’, as the current three versions do not make any mention.

The National Institute of Statistics and the National Council on Economy and Labour in Italy have launched an initiative that identifies indicators other than GDP, such as social and environmental indicators as well as measuring inequalities and sustainability, needed to complete the picture. Each indicator contains a specific category on labour and work-life balance, which in turn has an indicator on the gender imbalances within the family/couple in the responsibility of unpaid care work. This initiative – led by governmental institutions – was seen as an opportunity to gain the national perspectives needed to put unpaid care work on the development agenda. For instance, Italy could use the initiative as a prerequisite for considering unpaid care work within the Italian international development cooperation. It was hoped that this would create a different approach to development (and unpaid care work) by the Italian government.

Specific strategies to getting care on the agenda include Governments taking an interest in care. An example was provided from Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) in Bangladesh who initiated a national campaign on women’s unpaid care work and unpaid labour, and raise awareness about the issues which devalue women and their work. MJF is also working in conjunction with Women and Children Affairs Ministry and other sectors of government, through dialogue and negotiation, to get care on women development policy’s agenda. Strategies include national media campaigns using posters, billboards, films, street theatre, adverts, talk shows and, features in newspapers. Other activities include rallies, door to door visits, and village level and courtyard meetings, as well as national advocacy targeting Ministries that work with large number of women (e.g. Ministry of Agriculture and Labour to address informal workers) and working with relevant institutes to include women’s unpaid work in the national economy. The aim of these activities it to show the economic value of women's unpaid work inside and outside the home, while changing the position of women in society by making people respect women more.

4 Raising grassroots level awareness to create public opinion, organising series of consultation with relevant experts, consulting with other countries’ draft law and organising discussions with experts or people who have worked on domestic violence in neighbouring countries were also suggested strategies.

The approaches to do so could also include a two-pronged approach:

1. Target a specific policy that can either directly reduce the drudgery of unpaid care work or redistribute this work through the provision of public services. For example, as part of ActionAid International’s programme to make care visible, in Nigeria the women on programme and civil society partners want government to properly finance and implement the Integrated Early Childhood Development policy. While this gives a clear demand that government and civil society can understand and work towards, there are also risks with focusing on early childhood education. There is a possibility that the child rights agenda for early childhood education could overshadow women’s demands that the state take on a fairer share of childcare provision. If it does, implementing the policy will not increase recognition of women’s unpaid care work. Additionally unpaid care cuts across so many different areas where other groups’ voices may already be quite strong. 2. An awareness raising campaign to show exactly how much women contribute and why this continues to be ignored. For instance, in Kenya ActionAid pushed for care to be included in the Women’s Political Charter that was presented to all the political parties ahead of the 2013 elections. The elections were an opportunity to put unpaid care either on the political parties’ agenda or on the agenda of women’s organisations. Recognition itself can also lead to a specific policy demand such as in Tanzania where women’s rights groups successfully lobbied for a national time use survey conducted in 2006. However this survey could always be shelved and ignored after completion.

It was also suggested that unpaid care work could be incorporated through two possible aspects: 1. Social protection on the demand side: Indonesia has a conditional cash transfer scheme (PKH program) which could be incentive for beneficiary families to get an adult family member to work overtime so that there is more time to care for and nurture children. 2. Day Care Service on the supply side: Service provision for Indonesia’s early childhood education program (PAUD program) is limited. Upgrading the PAUD into an integrated school and day-care service could solve this limitation.

Mobilising women could also help increase self-transformation and self realisation of the worth of unpaid care work. This self-realisation has inspiringly prompted women in some cases to negotiate with husbands and other male members of the family about the unpaid care work burden. In Assam, for example, independent left unions mobilised both contracted and permanent female tea plantation workers to fight for the obligatory paid maternity leave and crèches granted by the plantation labour act. In India, woman demand to be unionised under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). They also demand construction work that caters to care needs such as building water facilities, horticulture farms, crèches and so on.

5 A depletion through social reproduction (DSR) conceptual framework has also been developed to present strong evidence on the necessity of recognising social reproduction’s subsidy to global capital. It is hoped that identifying and measuring DSR will increase the recognition of social reproductive work’s value and its costs. By outlining the argument for recognising care/social reproductive work, and using the DSR measurement, we can campaign for inclusion of care work in policy agendas, more work on identifying and measuring social reproductive work as well as DSR that accrues through it, inclusion of the value of social reproduction in the GDP, gender equality in care work, and policy shifts that recognise the value of social reproduction and the costs of DSR for society as a whole.

Some very relevant questions were raised by the discussion:

1. Why do we want to put unpaid care work on the agenda and which/whose agenda 2. What aspects and kinds of work are we talking about if ‘care’ is to be on policy agendas? 3. What strategies to adopt for working on this issue? 4. Whose policy are we addressing - national governments, international NGOs and /or bilateral and multilateral development agencies? Do they have similar or different complementary objectives? 5. What are the policy asks? What is the link with the larger issue (e.g. social welfare/ women’s rights - for which audience/ allies?) 6. Are these policy asks specific in manner that people / policy makers understand? 7. Can the specific impact of a met or implemented policy ask be shown? In other words why do people/ policy makers NEED to care about it? 8. What risks are involved in making certain arguments/ policy asks (e.g. what would happen if a working mother is unable to get care for her children?) 9. What are the best practices in developing countries? There is need for analysis on the implications of social safety nets on unpaid care work, but is there enough data to show where care policies have worked

Overall, participants highlighted the need to understand the relationships between unpaid care and paid care and the crucial nature of politics i.e. its ability to change the values, cultures and norms on which our daily lives are organised. Participants also focused on care narratives’ different contexts and its implications on the variety of carer groups - who come from different socio-economic, gender, age and racial profiles. Though a challenge, this variety also provides a range of entry points into understanding the issue and putting it on the policy agenda. Finally, participants felt that specific groups, such as child and elderly carers, should not be forgotten by frameworks that get care on the agenda. This is especially so since some aspects of care, such as residential care for older people, are not so ‘sexy’ and get left behind. The need to separate ‘marginalised people’ and include the intersections of gender, class, ethnicity and race.

6 Discussion 2: What arguments work in getting policy response to unpaid care? Why do these work? Which arguments fail and why?

To frame this portion of the discussion, three main arguments for a policy response to unpaid care were highlighted by the facilitators:

1. Inequity: Asymmetric gender relations are perpetuated by feminising caring responsibilities and the low economic and political positions held by women because of the time they spend caring 2. Value of care: Due to its implications on economic models, mainstream economics has largely ignored the argument that unpaid care work be calculated in monetary terms 3. Instrumentalist argument: Reducing women’s 'care burden' to enhance their productivity in the market place - and thus contribute to economic growth might undermine the social (non-monetised) value of care?

What other arguments have been tried? Do they have to be context specific in terms of place and time? Do arguments work in the absence of political voice? Those who spend most time on care are too busy to politically organise.

One set of discussion focused on implicit and explicit arguments that we needed to be skilled at countering, such as: 1. Care work is elastic: it can contract and expand according to either the availability of services or women's individual time (i.e. ‘productive' work, paid or unpaid) 2. It is done out of love. There is no denying that love comes into it, but don't men love their children? Additionally what is there to love about washing dishes? 3. Blaming women's unwillingness or inability to 'care' for children and family. Here everything from youth gangs to malnutrition is blamed on the woman. Occasionally men get the blame, i.e. the effects of an absent male role model but the focus is on 'presence', role models, 'authority etc

The second theme in the discussion centred on what arguments (e.g. Instrumentalist/practical argument) to adopt for working on this issue? For instance, while 'instrumentalist'/'practical' arguments often provide gains, they also risk de-politicising the issue or opening doors for care to be used as another buzzword by the development industry. However, it was agreed that it is not an either/or situation, but instead how much we are simultaneously facilitating processes for feminist narratives on unpaid care to emerge, while strategically using instrumentalist arguments with governments and other policy actors, thus preventing instrumentalist arguments from becoming the dominant development narrative on unpaid care.

The third discussion tried to avoid the instrumentalist argument by asking whether attributing monetary value to care work actually convinced policymakers or trapped us into the very economic system we are trying to change? To counter this, a solution was proposed to quantify how the lack of adequate care in society would affect the market economy (e.g. the lifetime costs of inadequate care/nutrition for children under five, the lost productivity of workers with no rest time or health coverage etc.) While this might fit into the emerging wellbeing agenda, a question as asked as to if the well-being agenda was actually desirable? Especially as the

7 wellbeing agenda, which offers the opportunity to rethink what we measure and value, is still blind to women’s unpaid care work.

To achieve the overall aims of getting care onto the development agenda, it was suggested entering through the specific sectors we want to integrate unpaid care in. For example, economic and social justice arguments in rights based social protection were said not to hold ground. Instead, what works can be termed as the instrumental or practical argument. This relates to the value of unpaid care in ensuring that the outcomes of the social protection programmes and policies are achieved. Put in negative terms, this is about highlighting how making the exclusion of unpaid care an issue can potentially stop social protection programme's goals from being. Conversey, it would highlight unpaid care's contribution in making programmes more effective and sustainable.

Next steps included engaging with people in global development spaces, like Joseph Stiglitz, who are working on well-being indicators and getting them to place more emphasis on the societal significance of unpaid care.

Questions raised: 1. Reflecting on, and considering that the political implications of the arguments we use is as important as the nature of the arguments themselves? 2. Are there any particular challenges that certain sectors face that are specific to the nature of those sectors?

What Happened Next?

The online discussion aimed to gain a better understanding of the challenges in getting unpaid care onto the development agenda. Following on from this, a thematic literature review was completed in relation to policies on social protection and early childhood development in 144 low and middle income countries. Subsequently, an animation, ‘Who Cares’, which follows a woman caregiver, living in poverty, throughout her daily journey as she struggles against the drudgery associated with unequal care responsibilities was produced. This animation highlights the need for policy change that recognises the role of women and girls in the provision of unpaid care; reduces the drudgery of unpaid care; and redistributes unpaid care work (from women to men, and from the family to communities and the state), thus laying the basis for true gender equality. These are available on the Eldis Interactions website.

For more information, contact Zahrah Nesbitt-Ahmed, Research Officer: z.nesbitt- [email protected]