Transforming care work and care jobs for the future of decent work

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-154
Author(s):  
Laura Addati
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Care Work ◽  
International Labour Organization ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Decent Work ◽  
Global Policy ◽  
Unpaid Care ◽  
The Future ◽  
Keynote Speech ◽  
Policy Work

The article is an edited version of a keynote speech given at the 2019 Global Carework Summit and highlights the findings of the International Labour Organization report Care Work and Care Jobs for the Future of Decent Work. It takes a comprehensive look at the nexus between unpaid care work, paid work and paid care work, and its contributions to the future of work debates and global policy work around the achievement of gender equality.

Women-Friendly Working Environment in Bangladesh

2018 ◽  
pp. 52-68
Author(s):  
Tania Haque
Keyword(s):  
Negative Correlation ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Professional Work ◽  
Double Burden ◽  
Unpaid Care

Work is typically divided along gender lines with men being responsible for paid work and women for unpaid care work. There is a negative correlation between income and level of gender inequalities in unpaid care work. Income can give certain level of independence but reinforces new kinds of dependence and subordination of women in our society in Bangladesh. If women wish to begin their paid work, it means ideologically they want extra jobs and they have to willingly undertake this double burden of household and professional work. The study claims that there is a need of gender responsive rebalancing policies to ensure women friendly working environment to ensure actual empowerment of women in Bangladesh.

Women-Friendly Working Environment in Bangladesh

2018 ◽  
pp. 994-1010
Author(s):  
Tania Haque
Keyword(s):  
Negative Correlation ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Professional Work ◽  
Double Burden ◽  
Unpaid Care

Work is typically divided along gender lines with men being responsible for paid work and women for unpaid care work. There is a negative correlation between income and level of gender inequalities in unpaid care work. Income can give certain level of independence but reinforces new kinds of dependence and subordination of women in our society in Bangladesh. If women wish to begin their paid work, it means ideologically they want extra jobs and they have to willingly undertake this double burden of household and professional work. The study claims that there is a need of gender responsive rebalancing policies to ensure women friendly working environment to ensure actual empowerment of women in Bangladesh.

scholarly journals About time: gender equality in Malta's working-time regime?

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Camilleri-Cassar
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Equity ◽  
Working Hours ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Unpaid Care

To what extent does Malta's social policy support gender equality, in the use of time? How much do state policies assume that men and women both need time to care, as well as for paid work? Does Malta's full-time paid work structure allow time for the equal sharing of unpaid care responsibilities between women and men, that in turn enhances gender equity in the workplace and domestic sphere? Themes that emerge in the study rest largely on women's voices. The study finds that women need to shift their full-time economic activity to shorter and flexible working hours when they become mothers, with negative consequences of loss in income and career regression. Labour market exit and financial dependence on men is also a frequent occurrence. The findings of the study suggest that strong pressure to assume traditional roles is embedded not only in Maltese culture and social norms, but also in the state's own social policy.

On the question of cheap care: Regarding A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things by Raj Patel and Jason W Moore

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-207
Author(s):  
Kathleen Lynch ◽  
Mags Crean
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Unpaid Care ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Abstract Ideas ◽  
Nature And Society

One of the most engaging claims of Patel and Moore’s book is that abstract ideas have played a powerful role legitimating the exploitation of swathes of humanity, through distinguishing ontologically and epistemologically between nature and society. As most women, and indigenous people, were defined as part of nature, their labours and lives, including their care labour, were deemed to be part of nature and thereby legitimately exploitable. The authors claim that the cheapening of care arose from the separation of spheres between care work and paid work, between home and the economy, arising from the development of enclosures and the demise of the commons. What the book does not address, however, is how the exploitation of women’s domestic and care labour was not only beneficial to capitalism: men of all classes were and are beneficiaries of women’s unpaid care labour. The authors also suggest that the primary purpose of caring is to reproduce people for capitalism. But caring is not undertaken simply at the behest of capitalism. Nurturing and caring for others are defining features of humanity given the lengthy dependency of humans at birth and at times of vulnerability. The logic of care is very different to market logic.

Gender, equality and capabilities*

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy Fudge
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Decent Work ◽  
Unpaid Care ◽  
The North ◽  
Women's Equality ◽  
Antidiscrimination Law ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the relationship between women's equality, care work, and sustainable development, and develops a conceptual framework that can be used to understand this complex relationship. The chapter is organized as follows. The second section briefly reviews the relationship between sustainable development, which includes the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) ‘Decent Work’ Agenda, and women's equality. It answers the question on what basis or dimension women's equality should be measured. Instead of assessing a range of potential answers, it focuses on Amartya Sen's notion of substantive freedom and his capabilities approach. The third section argues that women's equality, and especially the relationship between women's equality and responsibility for care work, illustrates both the promise of, and the limitations to, Sen's capabilities approach. The fourth section sketches some of the salient differences between paid and unpaid care work in the North and the South, which also considers the capacity of the ILO 2009 report, ‘Decent Work for Domestic Workers’, to respond to these differences. Drawing upon feminist scholars, the fifth section argues that, supplemented by a theory of choice, deliberative mechanisms, and a social theory of power, the capabilities approach can be a useful tool for conceptualising women's equality and for recognising the significance of socially necessary care work. The chapter concludes by suggesting that a robust capabilities approach designed to address gender inequality and to incorporate care work illuminates the limitations in the current approaches of antidiscrimination law for addressing women's inequality.

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