• Women and Media Collective’s Director Programmes of Women’s Economic Rights, and Media, and ‘Working Hours: Exploring Gender Dimensions of Unpaid Care Work in SL’ Editor Dr. Sepali Kottegoda on how women perceive unpaid care work

Target 5.4 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) calls upon nations to “recognise and value unpaid care and domestic work”, which most often is deemed “women’s work”. Globally, 75% of unpaid care work is done by women. 

According to the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, women devote one to three more hours each day for housework than men and two to 10 times the amount of time a day to care. 

In June 2023, the Women and Media Collective published a collection of research papers titled ‘Working Hours: Exploring Gender Dimensions of Unpaid Care Work in Sri Lanka’ with the aim of exploring unpaid care work in Sri Lanka. The Women and Media Collective’s Director Programmes of Women’s Economic Rights, and Media, and ‘Working Hours: Exploring Gender Dimensions of Unpaid Care Work in Sri Lanka’ Editor, Dr. Sepali Kottegoda and the Colombo University's Arts Faculty's Political Science and Public Policy Department Head and Senior Lecturer, and Treasurer of the Social Scientists’ Association Dr. Pradeep Peiris edited the publication.

On Kaleidoscope this week, Dr. Kottegoda discusses prevalent challenges and barriers in giving formal recognition to unpaid care work in the formal labour force economy. 

The following are excerpts of the discussion:

What are the key takeaways from your research?

One is that we brought the issue of unpaid care work into open policy discussions. There is awareness of what comprises an unpaid care worker among those we are working with and those who got involved with our research. The discussions we’ve had with different participants were interesting. 

What were some of the revelations that you came across?

We gave each of our respondents to the survey a diary and asked them to fill up the columns each day with the work that they did. Our research was conducted among 800 households with 700 women and 100 men. The diary had hourly slots which they filled up with what they did each hour. 

Once they began filling in the time slots, the respondents said that they never realised how much work they did in a day. That was an amazing thing because usually, when you ask any woman who is a housewife whether they work, they downplay it and say, ‘I do nothing’. The fact that they noted down everything and then realised that they have been doing so many things during the day was a great revelation for them. 

What are the statistics like in Sri Lanka and how do we compare to other countries?

The labour force is determined as a primary factor that contributes to the economy and the country’s gross domestic product. In Sri Lanka, this formal labour force has a very low participation of women; just 34%, which is about 2.9 million from a population of over 20 million. This is compared to 65% of men, which is about five million of the population. 

So, why are the women not in the formal labour force? There are about 6.2 million women over 50 years of age who are deemed to not be in the labour force, and of them, 60% are engaged in household work. This means that the definition of the labour force is the major obstacle that stands in the way of many women being counted as contributors to the economy. Relative to other countries in South Asia, our female labour force participation is quite low. 

Unpaid care work is rarely recognised as ‘deserving’ of remuneration and recognition; why is that?

It’s always couched in gendered norms that exist in society. Care work is ‘what women are born to do’. They were born to care for a family, to cook and clean, to wash and clean, and to look after the elderly. These norms need to be dismantled. 

From the time a child is birthed, to every other care related duty, household work can be shared between a woman and a man. We need to address that care work need not be the primary role of women. It can be shared.

From the 1980s to now, what progress have you seen in unpaid care work being a focus for policy change?

The changes come in the global field. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) did not address any of these issues. However, the SDGs specifically mention a Goal related to the recognition of unpaid care work. Since Sri Lanka is also a party to the SDGs, the country must give that recognition to the said Goal. 

In terms of the global discourse, unpaid care work has been recognised after decades of research, advocacy and planning by many scholars, feminist economists, feminist anthropologists, and sociologists, who have been pushing for the recognition of unpaid care work. The issue has made its mark, but policy and attitudinal changes must follow. 

You’ve talked about the need to include the labour of unpaid care work into the economy and the labour force. What barriers do we have to break in order to achieve this?

The primary barrier is that unpaid care work has no economic value. Currently, to be included in the labour force, the definition refers to someone being engaged in some kind of activity that can be valued economically, such as wage workers or salaried persons. 

If we recognise that unpaid care work has an economic value, then, we can move towards expanding the definitions that currently exist for the labour force, so that we include the labour of those engaged in unpaid care work. 

Are there policies in place or being proposed to bring unpaid care work into the mainstream economy?

At this point, there are no policies from the Government in this regard. Hence, at the moment, it is very much research-related advocacy that’s bringing this discussion to policy spaces. 

There are naysayers who deny that unpaid care work needs to be recognised. What do you say to them?

I’d like to propose that 75% of women who are engaged in unpaid care work go on strike for a week. Let’s see how society functions then. Our daily lives will grind to a halt.

Is this purely a women’s issue or do men have a stake in this as well?

In our research, we did include a small sample of men, because we recognise that there are men who do this type of work, or who share the care work in their homes with women. Men do have a stake in this and that needs to be highlighted as well.

If the man doesn’t sit around waiting for his cup of tea or plate of food to come to him miraculously, then, by sharing the process of preparing the food and caring for themselves and others, men will realise that life can actually be of a better standard and that relationships can be more fulfilling. 

What differentiates care work that is unpaid and services provided by child and elderly care service providers? 

It’s the work that is done in terms of the market. The market is for childcare or eldercare services that come with wages. Therefore, it is considered economically valuable and contributory. Unpaid care work, on the other hand, has no wages involved. It’s not even the case of wages, it’s about valuing it economically. Perhaps, it’s also about valuing unpaid work more in terms of social relationships and not assuming that women are “meant” to provide this service free of charge. 

What does the future hold for unpaid care workers in this country? 

This is just one piece of research and the process has a long way to go. The Department of Census and Statistics conducted a time use survey similar to the one we did in 2017, so that’s a positive step in terms of engaging with policy. 

Our work looked at the issue in a more holistic way, asking women to list out the activities that they performed during different times. This was so that we could capture the simultaneous activities that they do, which are also very important contributions.

It will be a long journey to get recognition and value for unpaid care work but we hope that this kind of research is picked up and used by others. This isn’t something that should be confined to one research output. By raising awareness and understanding why it is important, we should be able to move forward. 

(The writer is the host, director, and co-producer of the weekly digital programme ‘Kaleidoscope with Savithri Rodrigo’ which can be viewed on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. She has over three decades of experience in print, electronic, and social media)