CAPRI | Why we should care about the 'care economy'

The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) first female managing director, Christine Lagarde, since assuming the role, has used her office to bring the issue of gender to the forefront of policy prescriptions for economic growth. Her proposal of "the economic case for gender equity" focuses primarily on the barriers to women's full participation in the economy, and rests on the proven basis that women's economic empowerment leads to economic growth, reduces inequality, boosts productivity, and furthers economic diversification. These barriers take different forms from one country to another. In some countries, there are cultural impediments to women working outside the home; in others, legal barriers to women's financial inclusion; and, still in others, logistical obstacles, such as inadequate transportation. Of all the obstructions to women's participation in the labour market, the principal obstacle throughout the world is the unpaid work that women do at home and in the community. This unpaid work - the labour required to meet the needs of children, the ill, the elderly and the disabled to be provided and cared for, and to reproduce the labour force - is what is called the 'care economy'. Markets cannot operate without a workforce, which is supplied by social reproduction in the home. That social reproduction is comprised of the unpaid work that makes paid work possible.

These are not new ideas. Women's rights activists and feminist academics have been advancing these arguments since the 1970s. The care economy is only considered new now because it occupies a place on the mainstream policy agenda. The reality is that if the IMF says that gender matters, then, it does. The 2017 US$12-billion loan programme with Egypt contained gender stipulations, including allocating US$13 million to improve the availability of public nurseries to increase female labour force participation.

Indeed, the IMF mission chief for Jamaica has held consultations with Jamaican stakeholders towards the consideration of gender issues in the reform agenda for Jamaica's current IMF programme, and just two weeks ago, convened a seminar that included a presentation on crime, youth and the economy that contained a significant gender dimension in its analysis.

CAPRI conducts first-time study

Given the growing importance of the care economy in the mainstream policy debate on economic growth, CAPRI undertook a study to explore what the present iteration of the care economy means for Jamaica. An important aspect of the study was a pilot time-use survey (TUS), the first ever conducted in Jamaica or the English-speaking Caribbean. Time-use surveys measure how people use their time, and in so doing, supply empirical data on labour market activities, unremunerated work, production, consumption, and leisure. TUS data is a standard tool for labour market policymakers in many countries around the world. The difference in time spent on the various activities undertaken by women and men, in particular, the time spent on unpaid work, has been identified as one of the significant factors that contribute to women's poverty. By providing sex-disaggregated, time-use data, the TUS allows for deeper insight into the patterns underlying the disproportionate resource - money and time - constraints that women face, and, using that data, how these constraints might begin to be ameliorated.

COSTS TO UNPAID WORK

The survey findings confirmed that the patterns that exist throughout the world hold true for Jamaica: Jamaican women bear the largest responsibility for unpaid reproductive work, at the same time as they have less access to resources and paid work than men do; and, women at all income levels do more unpaid care work than men do, lower-income women do the most unpaid care work of all women, and the time women spend on unpaid care work is time that could be but is not spent on paid and productive work. The study showed clearly that the allocation of Jamaican women's time to unpaid care work has a negative correlation with their labour force participation rates, labour exclusion and gender pay gaps. Based on the data, there are real costs to the economy of unpaid care work.

The report concludes that if Jamaica's policymakers are concerned with increasing labour force participation and productivity in the quest for economic growth, if they are concerned with the composition and quality of the future work-force, and if they are concerned with the health and well-being of the entire society, whether as a means to overall greater productivity and economic growth or as an end in itself, women's care needs must be addressed. By quantifying and monetising unpaid care work, calculations can be done that will show the extent to which relieving women of the burden of unpaid care work can redound to the effect of the firm and the broader economy, and can thus inform relevant policies. The report explores a variety of ways in which this can be done, ranging from fiscal policy, to state provision of/support for care services, to private sector provision of/support for employees' care needs.

CAPRI's Care Economy study will be published soon. You can email info@capricaribbean.org to join the think tank's mailing list, and stay abreast of current research, report launches and public forums. You can also follow CAPRI on Twitter (@capricaribbean), Facebook (@capricaribbean) and Instagram (@capri.caribbean).