Women Hold Up Half the Sky: The unseen work of care
- Sonia Phalatse
Women Hold Up Half the Sky: The unseen work of care
In South Africa, it is often cited that the unemployment rate for women remains stubbornly higher than for men. The latest statistics from reveal a bleak picture; the official unemployment rate for women is approximately 35.9%. This exceeds the national average of 33.2% and is nearly 5% higher than male unemployment at 31%. When discouraged work seekers are included, the expanded unemployment rate for women is considerably higher.
What this daunting picture does not show is the unpaid work that women predominantly do to maintain and sustain everyday life. Time-use research in South Africa shows that women spend, on average, about 225 minutes a day on housework (like cooking and cleaning) compared to the 85 minutes that men do on average. A study by the found that South African women spent 15.6% of their day on unpaid care work compared to men who only spent 6.5% of their day.
Care is also undervalued when it is paid. Care services are predominantly provided by women, yet workers in care work are often paid less than workers in business and corporate sectors. This reflects a broader problem in our society that assumes care as an inherently women’s role rather than being viewed as work that requires skill and is socially necessary.
Valuing unpaid care work
Feminist economists have pioneered research and advocacy to show how unpaid care produces and sustains the labour force, the people who participate in paid work, education and public life. The scale of the contribution of care work is reflected in various attempts at measuring it. Using one method, feminist economist Debbie Budlender that the value of unpaid and domestic work in South Africa was about 30% of GDP in 2008. Morne Oosthuizen’s of the 2010 Time Use Survey valued household production (housework and caregiving) at R749.9 billion, where women contributed almost three-quarters of this work. These estimates differ according to the approach and criteria of the valuation model, but they all point to a stark fact – that the economy not only depends on this work, but is also potentially beneficial for the growth of the economy, is largely invisible in national accounts like GDP.
The crisis of care
But care work is crucial for maintaining life on earth, and its systemic undervaluation will have widespread consequences. Unfortunately, this is a process that is already underway. Feminist economists use the term the to describe the widening gap between the care that people need and the resources, services, and institutions available to provide it. What we are witnessing now is an increasing demand for care, but its responsibility is shifted onto households and, within them, onto women. Care workers are expected to absorb this pressure despite low earnings, insecure conditions and limited social recognition. This crisis is therefore a shortage of care workers in occupations that provide care, which reflects a much broader economic crisis that stems from how society treats and values women, and by extension care. This is an economic system that cannot survive without care work, but fails to adequately provide the public infrastructures to support and sustain it.
The Care-Climate Nexus
Unfortunately, the climate crisis presents a new set of challenges that is intensifying the unequal distribution of care. Climate disasters place immediate pressure on hospitals, childcare services and emergency centres. When floods damage homes, like we saw in the Western Cape just about a month ago, communities are displaced and are forced to somehow rebuild their lives, often without adequate government support to do so. In the SCIS Climate Change and Inequality programme we have been conducting research that asks about the effects of climate change on the organisation and provision of care, particularly in a context of the increasing financialisation and commodification of care work – where the cost of receiving care is increasing and those who can afford access to care, are able to adapt more than those who cannot. This research is part of a global South -led initiative called the that is conducting a cross-continental study across Africa and South America on the relationship between climate change and care work.
Out fieldwork across 9 African communities has brought this relationship into view. We have encountered unionised healthcare workers in Ghana (mostly women), for example, who sweep floodwaters from hospital floors without compensation. We have heard from older caregivers in the rural village Siaya in Kenya who are forced to walk farther to find water after nearby sources have dried during droughts. We learned from parents of children with intellectual disabilities who struggle to afford adequate support for their children during climate shocks. These are the types of unpaid labour that continues to be unrecognised and unpaid, but is often lauded as forms of climate resilience, rather than evidence of political and economic failures.
One of the key arguments we make in this project, and in the is that investments in care should be intertwined with climate policy. Public, accessible infrastructure that alleviates the burden of care and makes it easier to be done such as childcare and ECD centres, hospitals, eldercare and support for people with disabilities, enables communities to prepare for and recover from climate events. Other infrastructures that are not necessarily directly related to the provision of care such electricity and water provision, are equally important. It can reduce unpaid work and free up time for other things, like doing income-generating activities.
The Africa Care-Climate hub () is an extension of our work on the care-climate nexus. The hub seeks to strengthen collaboration between research, policy and community experiences in Africa to inform and influence climate policy.This Women’s Day, I am reminded of the Chinese proverb that Women hold up half the sky. But what happens when the sky is, to add to the metaphor, falling? Perhaps it is time we ask a more confronting question: why must women carry so much? Women should not only be celebrated only for their resilience while the conditions that produce their unequal care burdens remain unchanged. Our work advocates for the recognition, redistribution and fair remuneration of this work as part an effort to build a more just and liveable future for us all.