1. Inspiring actions to recognize,
reduce and redistribute rural
women's unpaid care work
Thematic Webinar Series on Women's
Economic Empowerment
19 November 2013, 9-10 am EST

2. Welcome & Ground rules
• We would love to have your feedback and
questions. Kindly send your comments and
questions through the chat box.
• If you would like to speak, please raise the hand
sign. The Moderator will unmute your
microphone once it is your turn to speak.

3. Session Tips
Ensure that your AUDIO is working. Kindly use your
computer headset or phone connection.
Should you have trouble hearing or being heard, close
other applications on your computer (improves
speed!).
If you have any technical problems, please send an
email to knowledge.gateway@unwomen.org

4. Polling questions
Which household task do you most LIKE to do?
A: cooking (incl. getting water and fuel)
B: washing or ironing clothes
C: cleaning house
D: food shopping or growing food
E: care of children, elderly or sick

5. Where are you in the world today?

6. Who is who in today’s webinar?
Speakers
Thalia Kidder
Moderator
Rachel Moussié
Anna Falth
Deepta Chopra

7. Agenda for today’s webinar
1. Background and ‘common ground’
What is Care? What is the problem? - Deepta Chopra
Linking care to human rights & women’s rights – Rachel Moussie
Policy asks and strategies for change: the ‘4 Rs’ – Thalia Kidder
POLL
2. Working with communities, communications & advocacy
 Oxfam’s Rapid Care Analysis, local influencing, viral emails – Thalia
 Getting Care on the Agenda, Action Aid experience – Rachel
 Institute of Development Studies Animation - Deepta
Discussion, QUESTIONS and ANSWERS

8. What is care?
Definition: ‘Care’ includes direct care of people, housework that
facilitates caring for people (indirect care) and volunteer community
care of people, and paid carers, cleaners, health and education workers
Care is a social good, underpins all development progress
Sustains and reproduces society
Markets depend on care for their functioning
Unpaid care work

9. Why is Unpaid Care Work important?
1. Care has a widespread, long-term, positive impact on wellbeing and
development, & is critical to address inequality and vulnerability.
2. Care is important in understanding women’s lives:
Occupies large amounts of women’s and girls’ time -- restricting
participation in civil, economic and social spheres
Lack of leisure time -- reduction in women and girl’s well being
 Drudgery ....adverse health outcomes
Income from paid work....eroded with costs of care substitution
Economic empowerment through paid work...individualised, limited and
unsustainable
 Who cares when women work in paid jobs ....reduction of care, adverse
outcomes for care recipients

10. What’s the problem?
It is UNEQUAL
Unequal distribution of care undermines women’s and girls’ rights,
limit their opportunities, capabilities and choices and impedes their
empowerment.
It is INVISIBLE
In Policy – Intent and implementation
In Research – Political economy analysis of processes; M&E,
impact evaluations
In Programming – entry points, integration/ mainstreaming
(women-related and general programmes)
Amongst donors, government officials, researchers
In budgeting - It has INADEQUATE INVESTMENT.

11. Research on SP and ECD policy
No of policies
reviewed
No. of policies
which have a
care intent
No. of countries
that these
policies were
from
Social Protection
107
23 (21%)
16 (out of 53) –
SSA and LA
Early childhood
development
270
41 (15%)
33 (out of 142) –
LA and SSA
SP: Main focus on redistribution of care responsibilities from the family to
the state. Nothing about redistribution within the family; only 2 about
reduction of drudgery
ECD: Focus is on support for carers in terms of better parenting, including
the inclusion of men as fathers. Redistribution to state mainly based on
recognition of women working outside the home in paid jobs; No policy for
reduction of drudgery
http://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/2795/bitstre
am;jsessionid=26091DD43F6653874EFB06A98CA57843?sequence=1

12. Linking care to HR and WR
“Across the world, millions of women still find that poverty is their reward for a
lifetime spent caring, and unpaid care provision by women and girls is still
treated as an infinite, cost-free resource that fills the gaps when public services
are not available or accessible. This report calls for a fundamental shift in this
status quo, as part of States’ fundamental human rights obligations.”
UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights – Report on unpaid
care work , September 2013

13. Linking care to HR and WR
Q: What are the human rights violations that we see due to women’s and
girls’ unequal responsibility for unpaid care work
The report mentions the following rights violations:
•Right to work
•Rights at work
•Right to education
•Right to health
•Right to social security – maternity leave
•Right to benefit from scientific progress – infrastructure
•Right to participation

14. Linking care to HR and WR
Q: What are the human rights violations that we see due to women’s and
girls’ unequal responsibility for unpaid care work?
A Careless Budget

15. Approach – policy asks & strategies for change
•
•
•
•
Recognise* care and care work
Reduce difficult, inefficient tasks
Redistribute responsibility for care
more equitably - from women to men,
and from families to the
State/employers
Representation of carers in decisionmaking
… as a precondition for achieving
women’s political, social and
economic empowerment, and for
addressing poverty and inequality
* “Three Rs of Unpaid Work” Prof. Diane Elson 2008

16. Societies provide care through ‘care diamond’*
Household
….
Market employers
State:
pays, provides,
regulates care
NGOs,
community &
religious groups
* S. Razavi 2007

17. Examples of policy asks, interventions
1. Recognize
Government census includes care work, unpaid work, time-use surveys
Education - appreciation of carers, school curriculum
Development actors - (Unpaid) care documented with time use diaries, stories
Media– radio spots, TV, posters, street theatre, viral emails
2. Reduce
Available, accessible time & labour-saving devices; infrastructure development
3. Redistribute
Women to men: men learn cooking, do cleaning, child care, elder care
Families to the state/employers:
Increased care budgets; employers -childcare, health, maternity, pensions
Away from poor women & families:
Infrastructure & services in poor communities; domestic workers’ rights
4. Represent
Women unpaid carers represent themselves in municipal planning. domestic
workers involved in labor rights, or economic planning

18. Any Questions or Comments?
REMINDER!! Please type them in and we’ll answer them after the
presentations…

19. POLL: Why is care invisible in your context?
A: “Care isn’t
considered work”
?
B: “Care is something women
do, it’s ‘natural’ and normal”
C: “it happens in the
private sphere”
D: “too hard to change
and/or not easy to
measure”
E: “it’s not clear what the
alternatives are, what
can we do?”
Write in other
reasons!

20. In your context,
What might be the first step, or the most effective
strategy or policy ask?
RECOGNIZE
CARE through
documenting,
publicizing &
appreciating
REDUCE time,
difficulty,
labour
intensity of
CARE tasks
REDISTRIBUTE
responsibility
for CARE from
women to
men
REDISTRIBUTE
responsibility
& costs from
(poor) families
to the state /
employers
Increase
REPRESENTATION
of CARERS in
decision-making
& policy
A
B
C
D
E

21. Communities, Communications & Advocacy
What makes a ‘4 Rs’ initiative effective?
 Care is a significant issue here – context-specific evidence
It’s relevant , appealing & compelling – we should do something.
It’s feasible, workable - we can do something.
It’s inspiring!

22. Rapid Care Analysis in development programs
Oxfam’s Rapid Care Analysis (RCA) is a 1-2 day exercise with focus groups of
12-20 women and men, a first step to addressing care in development.
FOUR STEPS
 Exploring relationships of care – whom do
you care for and who cares for you?
 Unpaid and paid work activities of women &
men – estimate average weekly hours on care
 Context-specific problem statement:
- Gender and age analysis of care work; changes
in policy, migration, environment; identify ‘most
problematic activities’ for women.
 Options to reduce and redistribute care:
- Community map of infrastructure & services:
identify and prioritise options and actions
RCA focus group in the
Philippines

23. Women’s vs. Men’s work
Example from Bangladesh… hours per week
71 hrs
106 hrs
Hours per week

24. Advocacy for infrastructure and services
Water systems
Azerbaijan
Bangladesh
Colombia
Honduras
Nicaragua
OPT
Philippines
Sri Lanka
Tanzania
Electricity
Childcare and
play facilities
Health and
social
services
Technology to
Transportation
improve
and school
cleaning and
bus
cooking

25. Popular communications: AFM network & Oxfam
Viral emails:
migrant domestic
workers’ rights
Recognize economic
contribution of care
work
International ‘care
chains’
http://www.mujeresdelsur-afm.org.uy/

26. Popular communications
Viral emails about migrant domestic workers

27. Getting Care on the Agenda
Naming, Framing, Claiming and Programming
Naming: Make care visible in policy discussions - Care is important
to sustaining any society, yet unequal and concentrated care provision
by a few is a problem. So why is it not visible?
Framing: Promote care as integral to human wellbeing - Women’s
rights, well-being, inequality and poverty, national development, burden?
Claiming: Demand government action – Changing policies to
recognise, reduce and redistribute unpaid care work through public
service delivery, improved regulations on labour conditions etc.
Programming: Support more equitable distribution of
care responsibilities – Designing programmes that address unpaid
care work
Eyben, Rosalind. 2013. Getting unpaid care onto the development agendas. IDS
In Focus Policy Briefing, Issue 31, January 2013

28. Getting Care on the Agenda: Action Aid example
Advocacy happens in many different ways, but here are some of the steps we’ve
taken at ActionAid to make care visible:
1.Participatory research and awareness raising amongst women
2.Building the capacity of women and their groups or organisations to value
unpaid care work
3.Comparative participatory research with men
4.Women’s groups identify and prioritise their demands for change
5.Presentation of participatory research during community meetings
6.Using research, case studies and women’s testimonies to make care visible to
national policy makers
7.Identifying allies, building national coalitions and working with the media
ActionAid. 2013. Making Care Visible: Women’s Unpaid
Work in Nepal, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya.

29. IDS Animation: ’WHO CARES’
Unique approach to presenting research on unpaid care work linking women
and girl's economic empowerment and their human rights.
Unpaid care work underpins the well-being of all societies, rich and poor, but
is unrecognised and undervalued by policymakers and legislators.
Need for policy change that recognises the role of women and girls in the
provision of unpaid care; reduces the drudgery of unpaid care; and
redistributes unpaid care work (from women to men, and from the family to
communities and the state), thus laying the basis for true gender equality.
What does care-sensitive public policy look like?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVW858gQHoE

30. Video on unpaid care – advocacy tool

31. Questions, Comments and Answers
Questions and answers session