Home And The World

Context: Along with providing salary to housework (which was recently acknowledged by political parties), there is a need to address the larger issues related to women’s employment.

Factors responsible for sudden recognition of housework

• Breaking of the myth that housework is easy: Because during the lockdown, men also participated in housework and thus realized that it is not easy work.
• Added responsibilities in housework:
  • For the middle class, housework also includes care work such as educating or overseeing children’s overall development and taking care of the elderly, which has increased with online schooling and reduced options of hospitalization.
  • For the poor, housework also includes keeping everyone fed with little or reduced income and caring for the ill.

Problems associated with women’s employment 

• Falling workforce participation rates: According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), during the pandemic, women’s participation rates falls to 11 %, against 71 % for men.
  • This decline is biased towards urban areas, with the rate falling to 6.9 %. 
  • This is further aggravated by the added responsibility of unpaid housework.
• Exclusion from labour laws and policies: Paid domestic work has for long been neglected from the perspective of labour laws and policies.
  • Volunteer workers like Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), Anganwadi volunteers and other scheme workers are not acknowledged as workers and are denied all labour rights.
• Wage differentials with male counterparts: In India, as per PLFS 2018-19 data, there are considerable wage differentials between male and female workers, be it casual or regular wage work.

Way forward:

• Provide wages for housework: Thus, a part of the household expenses of ill-paid workers would be taken care of by “state-paid” homemakers.
• Address the exclusionary and discriminatory tendencies in the labour market:  To redefine the labour of women.