How much is too much when it comes to women's unpaid work?

IN THE NAME OF LOVE

Shabrin Raisa Rahman

(shabrin.raisa.rahman@gmail.com)

My mother is a homemaker, a housewife. She not only carried me and my brother for nine months in her womb, but she nurtured us, fed us, and spent sleepless nights for us. This was only the beginning. Over the years, in the process of raising us, she sacrificed her dreams and chose us, her family, over everything else. It is not that she wasn't talented. She was and still is, an excellent cook. People come to our house and request her pickles. Her embroidery is impeccable. She has knitted fashionable winter wear for every kid in the family and the extended families. She reads the newspaper every day, is well-versed with what is happening around the world and is always willing to learn things the younger generation does. And yet, my mother is not a working mother, according to the common narrative. I am sure many of us have had these thoughts or have witnessed similar notions about women in our families.

During the Assembly Elections in April 2021, a few parties included payment of salaries to homemakers as a part of their election manifesto. But is the question really about monetizing housework? Let's see. According to statistics from the International Labour Organization, the current global labour force participation rate for women is close to 49%. For men, it's 75%. That's a difference of 26 percentage points, with some regions facing a gap of more than 50 percentage points. On the other hand, according to a World Bank report, only 19.9% of women constitute the labour force, which is 700 million people in India.

Even in today's date and time, most Indian women are confined to their homes. Housework or chores are primarily seen as women's work, although it is an indispensable part of any operational household or society. That raises the question of whether the problem is really about unpaid work or the social construction of a patriarchal society and its division of work? Men are increasingly embracing the equality of their role in housework, but there's still a higher percentage of men who are stigmatized for it, regardless of the education of the family in question or where they belong in the social hierarchy. The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), in its report in 2020, stated that women spend four hours more on unpaid work each day than men in India that accounting for a whopping 238 minutes per day.

The asymmetry in the distribution of work by men and women is the reason behind the gap in the workforce. In this regard, the Government of India's decision to measure household chores as part of the economy-boosting activity is a positive shift. At the same time, the underlying notion of chores as women's work needs to be addressed, especially when women are their active agents. A mother not allowing her son to help but expecting the daughter or a daughter-in-law to take the responsibility needs to change. Equal distribution and awareness will ensure that women spend more time on necessities outside household chores - that includes a career, which may mean either a working professional or an entrepreneur. Indian women are also largely involved in agriculture, and such a shift will boost their productivity. Not just professional growth, an egalitarian distribution of housework will boost how they take care of themselves and their family members. In the paradigm of greater things, this will contribute greatly to India's economy.

We have to let go of the popular conception that doing household chores or taking care of the children is a feminine trait. Monetizing their current 'housework' hours will only aggravate the labour gap without any concrete change in how we perceive the problem. The hours women spend on completing these tasks take a toll on their overall physical and mental health and decreases their productivity. As in my mother's case, she has monetized her work by opening an online fashion store and a home bakery. A huge percentage of women still believe that all that they do for their family is out of love for them, which validates their biggest share. But are we to accept that women love more and men less? Currently, the numbers indicate that Indian women are overburdened. We need to change the narrative to change the numbers.