Wages For Housework: Recognition of Women’s Work or a Policy Shortcut?
2 years, 7 months ago

Wages For Housework: Recognition of Women’s Work or a Policy Shortcut?

News 18  

Due to the traditional division of labour, women and girls majorly perform unpaid household chores such as cooking, cleaning, and care work. In recent times, several political leaders have highlighted the need for remuneration for women’s unpaid domestic and care work. The policy of wages for housework does not make any provision for the unpaid work at home to be redistributed and shared equally between men and women. Therefore, a policy like wages for housework cannot be used to replace the investment in public services needed to reduce the burden of unpaid work on women. It is now widely recognised that the disproportionate burden of unpaid domestic work acts as a barrier to women’s economic empowerment.

India Policy Household Women Work Domestic Wages Unpaid Paid This Work Paid Work Unpaid Domestic Work Unpaid Work Housework  work  policy  womens  shortcut  unpaid  paid  housework  women  wages  domestic  recognition  household

History of this topic

Reshaping gender roles in India: Improving women’s economic outcomes
6 months, 1 week ago

Reshaping gender roles in India: Improving women’s economic outcomes

Hindustan Times  

Women with children all across the globe face the daunting task of balancing career growth with caregiving responsibilities, which often leads to career stagnation and perpetuates several gender gaps in accessing decent jobs. Across G20 countries, without exception, women on average perform the majority of the daily time spent on unpaid care work, ranging from 90.5% in India to 60.2 …

From women’s unpaid labour to ASHA wages, how are parties addressing the care work economy? | Explained
7 months, 3 weeks ago

From women’s unpaid labour to ASHA wages, how are parties addressing the care work economy? | Explained

The Hindu  

A rare sight was witnessed at an Amaravati rally— an Indian politician speaking about women’s unpaid labour at home and the cycle of caregiving. About unpaid labour of homemakers Research conducted by economists Ashwini Deshpande and Naila Kabeer in 2019 showed domestic and care work lowered the probability of paid work for women. Congress vows to “protect the rights and …

The determinant in more women in the job market
9 months, 2 weeks ago

The determinant in more women in the job market

The Hindu  

There is growing demand from social scientists, governments and international organisations, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, that women’s participation in the economy/labour market should increase to promote economic growth of India. Consequently, they overcrowd in stereotyped low productivity jobs and lag behind men in all average labour market outcomes such as participation, wages, and diversification …

How much work is housework? Computing the value of unpaid labour
9 months, 2 weeks ago

How much work is housework? Computing the value of unpaid labour

Hindustan Times  

A Spanish court, in 2023, ordered a man to pay 200,000 euros to his ex-wife for the 25 years of unpaid domestic labour rendered by her. Women between 15-60 years of age spent 7.2 hrs a day on unpaid domestic work, compared to men who spent 2.8 hrs, per an analysis of the National Sample Survey Office’s Time Use Survey …

Burden of care work: Gender's impact on the wage gap
1 year, 2 months ago

Burden of care work: Gender's impact on the wage gap

Hindustan Times  

In 1989, Claudia Goldin became the first woman to be given tenure in the economics department at Harvard University. According to the International Labor Organization, unpaid care work is estimated to be one of the major barriers to women’s entry into the labour force. In India, conversations about recognising unpaid care work have been in the public sphere for many …

Closing the gender pay gap in the workforce
1 year, 2 months ago

Closing the gender pay gap in the workforce

The Hindu  

When women were missing from the labour force, that was because they were home caring for children; when they were paid less than men, that was because they had lower education than men. A name and a voice When Betty Friedan wrote in 1963 about college-educated women who were frustrated stay-at-home mothers, she noted that their problem has “no name.” …

There's A Key Difference Between The Chores Men And Women Take On
1 year, 9 months ago

There's A Key Difference Between The Chores Men And Women Take On

Huff Post  

LOADING ERROR LOADING In previous generations, household and child care duties were mainly the domain of women. Research on the division of household labor has found that men are often in charge of tasks they can do on their own schedule, “while women pick up responsibilities that are difficult to put off or reschedule and inherently forfeit their right to …

Measuring women’s work participation: why it is important to get it right
1 year, 10 months ago

Measuring women’s work participation: why it is important to get it right

The Hindu  

February 11, 2023 12:44 pm | Updated 09:38 pm IST The 2022-23 Economic Survey should be credited for acknowledging that official statistics may have inadequately captured the true nature of women’s work in India. The Economic Survey has listed three sources of measurement error: using very broad categories that club productive economic activity with domestic unpaid work ; asking single-shot …

Patralekha Chatterjee | Covid’s impact, WFH has hit India’s women harder
3 years, 5 months ago

Patralekha Chatterjee | Covid’s impact, WFH has hit India’s women harder

Deccan Chronicle  

What does being a homemaker and a mother really mean for the vast majority of Indian women? But millions of women in India, as in many other countries, are still socialised into accepting the notion that it is “natural” for women to be tasked with unpaid domestic work. Every day, women spent nearly five hours in unpaid domestic work; for …

How to treat unpaid work
3 years, 9 months ago

How to treat unpaid work

The Hindu  

Women everywhere carry a disproportionately higher burden of unpaid work, namely, unpaid domestic services as well as unpaid care of children, the old and the disabled for their respective households. More important, these wages may confirm unpaid work as women’s work only, which would deny opportunities to women in the wider world. Also, they could relieve women’s burden of unpaid …

Women are Working as Helpers in Family Businesses Without a Pay, Here's Why this Needs to be Addressed
3 years, 9 months ago

Women are Working as Helpers in Family Businesses Without a Pay, Here's Why this Needs to be Addressed

News 18  

In September 2020, when the first National Level Time Use Survey data of India, published by the National Statistical Office revealed that the average time spent in unpaid domestic and caregiving services by men and women are 36 minutes and 280 minutes, respectively, it confirmed the open secret that we all knew, but seldom talked about: women spend a disproportionately …

Recognising housework: Is paying the only way?
3 years, 10 months ago

Recognising housework: Is paying the only way?

Hindustan Times  

In January, the Supreme Court directed an insurance company to pay a higher claim amount by taking into account the unpaid work performed by a deceased homemaker. Indian women face an immense burden of care work, and they will not be able to move away from it unless India universalises maternity entitlements and childcare as a public good. One way …

Bridging gender pay gap, paternity leave mooted to boost women’s work
3 years, 10 months ago

Bridging gender pay gap, paternity leave mooted to boost women’s work

The Hindu  

The Economic Survey has rooted for paternity leave and suggested bridging the gender pay gap as part of a larger institutional support system to encourage participation of women in the labour force and highlighted that women shouldered much higher amount of unpaid care work than men. “In order to incentivise more women to join into the labour force, investment in …

Removing the creases in housework valuation
3 years, 11 months ago

Removing the creases in housework valuation

The Hindu  

“The wife owes service and labor to her husband as much and as absolutely as the slave does to his master. Justice N.V. Ramana in his crisp and authoritative concurring judgment of January 5, 2021 in Kirti and Another v. Oriental Insurance Company has referred to the Time Use in India-2019 Report of the National Statistical Office, Government of India …

No, Kamal Haasan. Pay for Household Work Won't Help Indian Women. These Policy Prescriptions Would
3 years, 11 months ago

No, Kamal Haasan. Pay for Household Work Won't Help Indian Women. These Policy Prescriptions Would

News 18  

When actor-politician Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam released a seven-point manifesto for Reimagining Tamil Nadu in the run-up to the 2021 elections, a glass ceiling was broken. To see mainstream politicians and judges recognize the burden of women’s disproportionate domestic work, and make it an election issue is heartening especially because Indian women spend up to 10X the time on …

A nod to recognising the value of housework
3 years, 11 months ago

A nod to recognising the value of housework

The Hindu  

In the context of the forthcoming State Assembly election in Tamil Nadu, the Makkal Needhi Maiam, led by veteran actor Kamal Haasan, has made an eye-catching election promise that is evidently targeted at a large constituency of voters — women who are full-time homemakers. Origins of the demand The demand for ‘wages for housework’ arose in the context of struggle …

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