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GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT SUPPORTING THE CARE ECONOMY
What the article is about?
- Talks about the need to increase the support to care economy
Syllabus: GS-III Inclusive growth and development
Care Economy:
- Care economy refers to the sector of economy that is responsible for the provision of care and services that contribute to the nurturing and reproduction of current and future populations.
- More specifically, it involves child care, elder care, education, healthcare, and personal social and domestic services that are provided in both paid and unpaid forms and within formal and informal sectors.
- The immense contribution of women to all spheres of life is often overlooked, unfairly valued, and hardly rewarded.
- This is ‘particularly evident in care work- both paid and unpaid, which is crucial to the future of decent work.
- Whether paid or unpaid, direct or indirect, care work is vital for human well-being and economies.
- Unpaid care work is linked to labour market inequalities, yet it has yet to receive adequate attention in policy formulation.
- Paid care workers, such as domestic workers and anganwadis in India, also struggle to access rights and entitlements as workers.
- Other related concerns:
- Maternity leave remains unfulfilled across countries, leaving millions of workers with family responsibilities without adequate protection and support.
- India fares better than its peers in offering 26 weeks of maternity leave, against the ILO’s standard mandate of 14 weeks that exists in 120 countries. However, this coverage extends to only a tiny proportion of women workers in formal employment in India, where 89% of employed women are in informal employment
- While paternity leave is not provided in many countries, including India.
- Globally, the average paternity leave is nine days, which further exacerbates inequity.
- Access to quality and affordable care services such as childcare, elderly care and care for people with disabilities is a challenge to workers with family responsibilities face globally.
- Domestic workers, on whom Indian households are heavily reliant, also face challenges in accessing decent work.
- According to the Government’s 2019 estimates, 26 lakh of the 39 lakh domestic workers in India are female.
- Maternity leave remains unfulfilled across countries, leaving millions of workers with family responsibilities without adequate protection and support.
Way Ahead:
- Recognising care workers and promoting decent work for all, including domestic and childcare workers are also necessary for India to achieve the SDGs which have a principle of ‘leave no one behind’.
- India spends less than 1% of its GDP on the care economy; increasing this percentage would unfurl a plethora of benefits for workers and the overall economy.
- The ILO proposes a 5R framework- Recognition, Reduction, and Redistribution of unpaid care work, promotes Rewarding care workers with more and decent work, and enables their Representation in social dialogue and collective bargaining.
