CARE ECONOMY IN INDIA – Safekeeping the safekeepers
July 21, 2021
Imagine working at a firm for most of your time in a day. You are the backbone of the firm and without you jobs for others would be like a nightmare. The whole firm depends on you for its smooth functioning. Without you the firm would shut down and the productivity of others would fall. Your work adds tremendously to the profits that the firm generates. But for a twist, your work goes unrecognized and you are not paid any remuneration for your cosmic contribution both to the firm and to other individuals working in the firm. The situation might seem unimaginable and impractical. But reality has hit hard ever since the concept of care economy is being talked about. The situation aptly describes the state of careers in any economy. Though economies have recently started acknowledging to the importance and existence of a care economy in any nation, there have been minimum efforts to address the questions that evolve around the topic.
Care Economy revolves around work in both formal and informal economic setting i.e., no matter which form the economy takes up, care work is inherent and inseparable. Adding further, it would not be wrong and questionable to affirm that a major brunt of care work lies on the shoulders of women in any economy. And also, the fact that women care givers are largely undervalued as they undertake care work, in most cases, that goes unpaid.Policy makers in the developed countries have begun to realize the contribution of women and their care work in economic development and all-round growth. However, underdeveloped and under developing nations are far behind this realization. Although recently scholars have started conducting empirical studies for a wholesome understanding of the care economy, there is still a huge lag between the type of care economy developed nations have vs. in developing nations like India. A simple reason for this is the difference between government spending on the required infrastructure that helps share the burden of care.
The following research aims to fill the loopholes in existing study and pave way for policy changes and/ or up gradation that not only help to rescue women from the labyrinth of gender norms but also acknowledge the market value and demand for care. Efforts in any economic sector to empower women will go futile unless their unpaid care duty is both shared and quantitatively valued. Women often have to leave their jobs or altogether aren’t able to join the labor force because of the work they are burdened with at homes. While we live in a free- market capitalist world where big economies stress on creating free markets because only self- interest can guide a nation to efficiency, women are proving that there is a greater force that keeps economies going- i.e., “care”- that does not even focus on profit maximization. Recent observations have proved that unpaid care work does not only undervalue a woman’s endless efforts but also underestimates the GDP of any nation. A right identification and valuation of care work can boost the GDP by 3 per cent of any nation on an average.
Telescoping to the Indian situation, women are at a much greater loss than many other developing nations like China. The simple cause being the traditional setup Indians still live in wherein most of the mindsets are framed patriarchally. Though policies in India exist to coordinate with women in their care work, the demography of the nation makes spreading an awareness about the policies and schemes a nightmare. Moreover, schemes will reap bare minimum results until and unless people update psychologically and value women’s work at homes as much as men’s work is valued at offices. It is only when these changes are brought about women will also get an equal chance to participate in the labor force- the gender division in employment being a different issue altogether. However, gender divide in labor force and care economy are also interwoven. Many-a-times women are unwilling to participate in the labor force because there exists a lag in how women’s and men’s works are valued. Furthermore, even if they participate, they are paid lesser on the grounds that they are less efficient because their productivity gets divided between office and home.
This work therefore, aims to understand that how care economy is perceived by economies and where economies fail to understand the true value of it. For the same, recent works on care economy across nations have been conceptualized and reviewed. While there exists empirical study on the topic under study but it stands at an infant level or focuses majorly on either developed nations and their policies or underdeveloped nations and their lack of policies. Therefore, this work also incorporates basic empirical study to understand the valuation of care economy in India. Along with this, various policies in India have been analyzed that are beneficial for women in sharing their care burden.
