Module 2: Care Work Flashcards
(32 cards)
Contrast the Neoclassical economics’ definition of work compared to a Feminist economics’ definition of work
Neoclassical:
- an activity you engage in to get pay, or something people engage in only for its tangible end product > it is employment > it is nota good, you don’t get utility from working > seen as a cost and burden we endure in order to earn pay
- any activity outside of formal markets is not work
Feminist economics’ view:
- an activity that you can pay someone else to do for you - delegate to a third party
- any activity performed to produce goods or to provide services for use by others or for own use
- encompasses both paid and unpaid work > more broad and inclusive definition
What 3 things does the care economy refer to?
- expenditure on children and other dependents > $ spend on individuals needing care > includes health care, education, and other social services
- paid care work > includes nurses, teachers, childcare workers, etc.
- unpaid care work *our focus
How can we define care work?
Activities involved in meeting the physical, psychological, and emotional needs of children and adults, young and old, frail and able-bodied
- the work that makes the world work
Define “care”
- a sense of concern for the well-being of those being taken care of
What are the 3 types of Unpaid care work?
- Direct/active care: involve a high degree of personal engagement (hands on or face to face)
- Indirect care: require less intimate engagement of the caregiver and the recipient of the care (ex. meal preparation)
- Supervisory care: the supervision of children or dependents while simultaneously doing other activities, often other household work (multitasking)
Around the world, women and girls carry out ___% of unpaid care work that is required to maintain families and society
80%
Explain 3 factors that affect the provision of unpaid care work
- Economic Factors:
- household income (ex. low income = care provided within the family, especially by women)
- access to public services or lack of care infrastructures
- cost of care
- recessions (strained public services means unpaid care work burden increases) and economic shocks - Demographic Factors:
- age of dependents: children, elderly
- fertility rates > lower = reduced number of kids needing care
- health and disability - Social and cultural Factors:
- change in household structure (nuclear or joint> allows for shared caregiving responsibilities)
- gender norms and expectations
*the context is important > care work cannot be understood or addressed without considering all 3 of these factors
Why is it important to understand and do research on unpaid care work?
- care work is essential for household well-being
- care work drives human capability development (skill-building and overall human development which benefits economic growth)
- recognizes women’s contributions - makes their role in economic development visible
- reveals consequences of unpaid care work > how does it affect women’s well-being?
- deepens understanding of gender inequality > insights into gender disparities
What are some ways to decrease the burden of unpaid care work?
- public provision of childcare facilities
- private provision of childcare facilities
- Including education about this in curriculums
- Access to abortion and reproductive rights
- Paternity leave and more flexible work hours / arrangements
- Social movements
What are the benefits of the institutionalization of childcare services?
- more employment for especially mothers
- employment for childcare workers > which increase in aggregate demand and economic growth
- improves the quality and quantity of care provided by parents when they’re at home
- improves the possibility of the whole family’s migration
- shifts caregiving from a private responsibility to a public service which helps us manage work-life balance
What are some problems associated with different kinds of institutionalized childcare services?
- high cost especially private day care centres
- non-synchronizing schedules
- transportation cost (time and money)
- poor quality of childcare (staff or facilities)
What are some tactics for improving institutionalized childcare services?
- subsidized childcare program
- flexible childcare hours
- better transportation options
- stronger regulations and training programs
What does GDP capture? What does it miss and what are the problems with it?
GDP captures the size of the formal and informal economy
What it misses/problems:
- unpaid work and care work
- black market transactions and some parts of the informal sectors
- the contribution of the ecological system, and cost of natural disasters
- tells us nothing about quality
- does not reveal income inequality or whether economic gains are fairly distributed
- social prosperity
- based on Eurocentric values and created/imposed by a group of rich countries
What would a feminist perspective propose for changes to GDP?
- should measure production AND reproduction
- should show intersectional inequalities
- should include dignified work; freedom from harassment, time and income poverty
- should capture measures of safety, voice, time, sexual and reproductive rights, freedom from violence
- should be an inclusive process that centres indigenous voices and knowledge systems, prioritizing inclusion of women
Explain the types of work within non-market work and their different accounting status’
Unpaid work producing goods for household consumption (ex. food from garden) > considered within the production boundary of system of national accounts but seldom accurately measured except in time-use surveys
Domestic services like cooking or cleaning and face-to-face personal care work > outside the production boundary of system of national accounts but often captured in time-use surveys
Supervisory unpaid care work > outside the production boundary and typically ignored or underestimated by time-use surveys
What are time-use surveys? Why are they important?
- research tool to measure how people spend their time on both paid and unpaid activities throughout the day
- provides core measure of amounts of work in paid and unpaid work (most common method for measuring unpaid care work)
- two types of surveys > activity-based and time-use diary
Importance:
- measures different kinds of work not always captured by employment or labour force surveys
- illuminates gender inequalities in unpaid care work and the labour market
- vital info on people’s well-being and quality of life
Explain the features of the activity-based survey and its advantages and disadvantages
Respondents recall and report the amount of time they spent on activities over a specific time period (ex. previous week)
- structured questionnaire format
- predefined activity categories (ex. unpaid domestic work)
- usually retrospective, based on memory
Advantages:
- cost-effective and easy to administer large-scale
- useful for quick assessments
Disadvantages:
- relies on memory which can be biased
- less accurate than time diaries
Explain the features of the time-use diary and its advantages and disadvantages
Respondents record activities continuously over a 24-hour period (what, when, where, with whom)
- open-ended diaries > in their own words
- structured diaries > select activities from a list
- paper-based or digital
Advantages:
- more detailed and accurate
- captures multitasking
- helps value unpaid care work for gender analysis
Disadvantages:
- time-consuming and more expensive to administer
- requires respondent literacy and sustained engagement
- may have underreporting of sensitive/undesirable activities
What kinds of decisions have to be made when designing a time use survey?
- timing of the survey > when to conduct the surveys (seasonality factor?)
- respondent perspective (gender?) and record keeping ability (way to tell time?)
- classification of activities
- capturing secondary activities like multitasking/supervisory care
- whether to use the same households while collecting longitudinal data
What are some gender statistics/disparities that time-use surveys show
- women spend more time than men on unpaid care work (like 3x more)
- when women enter the labour market, they do not decrease their house of unpaid work proportionately
- women work longer total hours than men
- women devote less time to leisure and personal care than men
- the gap in unpaid work is especially wide for households with partners and children
- having a partner increases men’s household work, but much much more for women
- single mothers face the highest unpaid workload
What does to mean to value unpaid work? Why is it important to do this?
It means finding ways to assign monetary value to work that is not paid for through the market (including housework, caregiving, volunteer services - typically performed by women)
Leaving unpaid work out of national accounting implies it contributes zero economic value which is inaccurate and unjust especially to women who do most of it
Briefly define the 2 main methods that are used to estimate the value of unpaid work
- Output-based method:
- estimates the value of unpaid work based on the market price of the goods and services produced (output), without considering the time/effort to produce them
- household output measured in physical units - Input-based method:
- estimates the value of unpaid work based on the time spent on various unpaid work multiplied by the wage rate that would be paid to someone else to perform that work
What 3 things do we need for the output-based method and how does it work?
a.) household output of goods or services, measured in physical units (ex. 10 loaves of bread)
b.) intermediate goods, measures in either physical or monetary terms
c.) market prices for the physically-measured items in a) and b) for that they can be converted into monetary measures
Process:
- multiply the household output in physical units by the market price of those goods or services if they were to be bought from the market
- subtract the market price of the intermediate goods used in producing the output
- equals the value of the unpaid work
What are the advantages and disadvantages to the output-based method?
Advantages:
- captures the value generated rather than just time invested
- aligns more closely with GDP accounting, which values output
Disadvantages:
- not all household services can be converted into output and do not have market prices for valuation as some activities are never marketed (ex. breastfeeding)
- ignores the time and effort put into the work (the time and effort to make a pancake in your house is greater than the time and effort included in the market price)
