Providing care can be both a source of fulfilment and a terrible burden. For women and girls in particular, their socially prescribed role as carers can undermine their rights and limit their opportunities, capabilities and choices – posing a fundamental obstacle to gender equality and well-being. This paper explores the issue of care and gender in terms of development and capacity building. It examines the obstacles it creates to women’s full and meaningful participation in the public sphere, their educational opportunities and their access to paid employment.
The paper argues for a ‘de-feminisation’ of care-giving, so that there will be a more equal sharing of care responsibilities between women and men. It finds that other strategies are needed to help re-frame unpaid care as valuable and productive, which it sees as a key step in ensuring that public investment serves the needs of those engaged in care work.
Through examples of initiatives taking place around the world, this report shows how policies and programmes can be designed in ways which expand women’s opportunities and choices, rather than restricting them only to traditional gender roles tied to motherhood and the domestic domain. Yet political commitment and dedicated resources are a prerequisite if these innovative approaches are to be translated into action; at present, both remain sorely lacking.
Recommendations:
Among the recommendations made in this report, there are four key, overarching recommendations which are relevant for all development actors to take up in their own ways.
- Care work must be recognised as a core development issue which needs to be accounted for and addressed in all development interventions, across all sectors, in gender-sensitive ways. Tools and checklists should be developed to support policymakers and practitioners to mainstream care issues into their work – particularly in the fields of education, political participation, economic participation, social protection, and migration.
- Development policies and programmes must challenge stereotyped assumptions about gender roles – for example that care work is the domain of women and not men. Policies and programmes should be designed in ways which expand women’s opportunities and choices, rather than restricting them only to traditional gender roles tied to motherhood and the domestic domain. Policies should also involve men in ways that break down gender stereotyping and open up possibilities for men and boys to take on a more active caring role.
- Initiatives to promote women’s economic participation must include an analysis of the interrelationship between paid work and care work, as well as comprehensive measures to redress the double burden of paid and unpaid work shouldered by many working women.
- Greater solidarity is needed among those working on the full range of care issues – gender, HIV and AIDS, ageing, disability and so on – from diverse disciplines and contexts. In particular, opportunities for greater dialogue and collaboration between those working on the economic and social aspects of care are key in order for holistic solutions to be developed.
