Care Work is an Essential Dimension of Human Wellbeing

This ProgBlog article by Make Mothers Matter, was a contribution to the Wikiprogress online consultation - “Reducing poverty is achievable: Finding those who are hidden by inequalities"

Care work is an essential dimension of human wellbeing. It encompasses indispensable domestic services within households, education and childcare, care of the sick, the disabled and the elderly, and services to communities.

Yet it remains, in the vast majority of countries, unrecognized both economically, legally and socially.

Time-use studies indicate that women bear at least 2/3 of the unpaid care work burden. As a result, women, and mothers in particular, suffer from “time-poverty” that prevents them from engaging in income generating activities. This devotion is often a necessity to compensate for the lack of social services available.  All too often women have to give up paid work outside the house to care for an elderly or sick child.  And in many areas unpaid work also has to compensate for the lack of public infrastructure (water and sanitation, energy, communications, transportation, health services…). Unpaid work is at the root of women’s poverty and discrimination.

Still, Nobel Price Laureate Gary Becker famously stated:

“The mother at home raising her children makes a greater contribution to the economy than the father in the workplace” (1998 UN Conference on the Family).

Notwithstanding the recognition of its importance in the Beijing Conference outcome document, and the recommendation that states create “household satellite accounts” that include a valuation of unpaid work into GDP figures for a better indicator of development and wellbeing, unpaid care work remains hidden from most statistics.

It is therefore urgent that:

• countries agree both on a common time-use survey framework and a common valuation methodology that balance simplicity/cost of implementation and comprehensiveness/meaningfulness of results;
• the economic and social  value of mothers’ caring work for her family be better recognized;
• new statistics be taken into account in development policies, that could notably aim at reducing the burden of unpaid work through the implementation of better social policies and infrastructure.

An encouraging sign is that during the High Level Panel held at the UN during the Commission on the Status of Women on march 12th, many countries have expressed the desire and recommendation that unpaid care work be recognized in national statistics, namely GDP, to underscore its importance and value to society as a whole.

One way to accelerate progress would be to integrate unpaid work in the post 2015 agenda: the implementation of an unpaid work indicator would not only underscore its economic value but also point to its uneven distribution between men and women, forcing states to act.

Make Mothers Matter

The connection between mother and child well-being

On May 13, the second Sunday of the month, many countries throughout the world - Cuba, United States, Australia, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, the Netherlands, Zambia, Honduras and Greece - paid tribute to mothers and their role in society by celebrating Mothers Day.

Despite the diversity of these countries in terms of their culture, languages spoken, history and economic wealth, one common element present within them and the world over is the importance of the role of mothers in children’s development. As documented in the Save the Children report ‘Nutritionin the First 1,000 Days, State of the World’s Mothers 2012’ the quality of children’s lives is dependent on the health, security and well-being of mothers. Providing mothers with access to education, income earning opportunities, maternal and child health care gives them and their children the best chance of survival and quality development.

The report applies a ‘Mother’s Index’ and ranks countries based on results. The index is constituted of a composite of separate objective indices for women’s and children’s well-being - which grouped into the broader areas of women’s health status; educational, economic and political status; children’s well-being - include female life expectancy, under 5 mortality rates, primary and secondary school enrolment, maternity leave benefits and ratios of male to female income earned. 

Applied to 165 countries (43 developed nations, 122 in the developing world) the index revealed stark differences between the situation for mothers in developed countries and those in the developing world with Norway ranked as the best place to be a mother and Niger the worst. The index reveals the severe inequality between countries and the degree to which mothers and their children, can and do, survive and thrive throughout the world.

The results of these objective indices are vital for revealing existing gaps and dangers, specifically related to child nutrition, and effectively focus on women as actors for change. In terms of the other aspects of children’s integral development (cognitive, socio emotional, spiritual and physical), the role of mothers is equally important and subjective as well as objective indicators of well-being are an effective way of measuring this and the situation for mothers and children beyond their mere survival.

Throughout the world mothers are the primary family caregivers and from Manhattan to Kinshasa, their emotional well-being, as well as their physical health, is highly important to the creation of a positive environment for children’s growth and development and therefore their long term well-being. Scientific studies show that children who grow up in a positive environment tend to have greater mental and emotional health throughout the course of their lives. Additionally, the maintenance of positive emotions during early childhood has an effect on self esteem and behaviour (Reynolds, 2007 & Stark 2002).

The application of subjective indicators such as those employed in the Canadian Index of Well-being - living standards, time use, community vitality, democratic engagement, and leisure and culture – would help to better ascertain how they feel about themselves, their lives, responsibilities as caregivers and their capacity to fulfil them. Such an approach would allow for insight into barriers that may hinder women’s well-being and the development of their children, for example the burden of caregiver responsibility that they carry and how without support opportunities for income generation, furthering education and free time for mothers are impeded affecting their economic, emotional and physical well-being and, their ability to breastfeed and the societal and cultural attitudes towards breast feeding.

Such detail can help to identify where greater supports are required for the benefit of mothers and in turn that of their children.

Reynolds, A., J. Temple, S. Ou, D. Robertson, J. Mersky, J. Topitzes y M. Niles (2007). Effects of a Preschool and School-Age Intervention on Adult Health and Well Being: Evidence from the Chicago Longitudinal Study. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, March 30, 2007, Boston, MA.

Stark, I. (2002). Engaging and Supporting Parents and Providers throughout A Continuum of Children´s Mental Health Services. Child Care Bulletin, spring (25), p. 7.