It is widely known that women’s economic empowerment can lead to
economic growth. However, it is important to understand women’s economic
empowerment as not simply about labour force participation, but also about
the choice to work, the choice of sector, location and working hours. This Policy
Briefing looks at the interactions between the market and the household and
the consequences of unpaid care work on the type, location and nature of paid
work that women and girls can undertake, thereby impacting their economic
empowerment. Further, it outlines policy actions that can help prevent women
from being forced into making choices that have negative social, economic and
political outcomes.UK Department for International Developmen

Chopra, D

English

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ISSUE 83 • JANUARY 2015
It is widely known that women’s economic empowerment can lead to 
economic growth. However, it is important to understand women’s economic 
empowerment as not simply about labour force participation, but also about 
the choice to work, the choice of sector, location and working hours. This Policy 
Briefing looks at the interactions between the market and the household and 
the consequences of unpaid care work on the type, location and nature of paid 
work that women and girls can undertake, thereby impacting their economic 
empowerment. Further, it outlines policy actions that can help prevent women 
from being forced into making choices that have negative social, economic and 
political outcomes.
“A broader 
notion of 
economic 
empowerment 
comprises both 
the market 
economy 
where women 
participate 
in the labour 
market, and 
the care 
economy 
which sustains 
and nurtures 
the market 
economy.”
 Balancing Paid Work and 
 Unpaid Care Work to 
 Achieve Women’s Economic 
 Empowerment
Economic growth will be short-lived 
if the focus is entirely on women 
participating in the labour force, and 
not on a wider understanding of 
economic empowerment. A broader 
notion of economic empowerment 
comprises both the market economy 
where women participate in the 
labour market, and the care economy 
which sustains and nurtures the market 
economy.  
There is a strong yet inverse link 
between the amount of time that 
women and girls spend on unpaid 
care work and their economic 
empowerment. This relationship 
becomes stronger because of two 
reinforcing dynamics – firstly, women 
face discrimination in the labour market; 
and secondly, the drudgery that is 
often involved in carrying out domestic 
responsibilities impacts on the health 
and wellbeing of women, further 
compromising their ability to participate 
in civil, economic, social and political 
spheres. This double burden has been 
termed as ‘time poverty’. 
Discrimination in the labour 
market
Over the past 30 years, credible 
evidence has confirmed a significant 
increase in women’s participation 
in the informal economy, leading to 
what has been called the ‘feminisation 
of informal labour’. Women are 
often concentrated in sectors such as 
home-based work, domestic work, 
construction and labour-intensive 
manufacturing such as garment making, 
beedi making, shoe making, packaging 
and handicrafts. According to the 
International Labour Organization (ILO), 
of the 53 million domestic workers 
worldwide, 83 per cent are women. 
This reflects the gender stereotype 
that perpetuates these jobs as being 
‘women’s work’. 
More critically, an undervaluation of 
women’s work in the paid economy 
adds to the already precarious nature of 
women’s employment. This implies that 
women are to be found in low paid, 
irregular, often unsafe and insecure jobs, 
with very little job security. 
Exploring the reasons behind the feminisation 
of these sectors reveals a strong link between 
women’s paid work and their unpaid care 
work responsibilities. 
Many formal sector jobs are found in large 
cities or places that are usually away from 
residences, thereby creating a barrier to 
women’s participation in the labour market 
because of high costs and time for transport 
that is usually inadequate and unreliable. With 
no help forthcoming either from the men in 
their families, or from the state in terms of 
public provision of services, women face the 
prospect of increasing levels of time poverty, 
making it difficult for them to consider looking 
for better paid jobs. This situation is further 
exacerbated by low wages and high costs of 
childcare, which can leave women with no 
other choice than to stay at home rather than 
work in the paid economy. 
Women are therefore more likely to 
undertake paid work close to home. One 
reason for this is because it enables them to 
mind their children, cook meals and care for 
elderly relatives, without incurring additional 
time and financial cost. Another reason is that 
male members of the household decide the 
location of the family’s residence and women 
usually depend on their informal information 
networks to find paid employment near their 
homes. 
Correlation between women’s 
stages of life and entry into the 
labour force
Women’s livelihood strategies of entering 
the paid labour market are deeply correlated 
to the stage in their lifecycle. Largely, young, 
unmarried or recently married women are 
likely to be working in paid jobs. However, an 
increase in their household responsibilities, 
either through marriage or childbearing, leads 
to many women either withdrawing from 
the labour market; finding more flexible, part- 
time jobs; or entering into self-employment 
that offers more flexible time management. 
Women with young children are less likely to 
enter into the paid job market, irrespective of 
their level of education.
Women with young children typically work 
within or close to their home until their 
children are at least in their mid-teens. 
Then, when their children no longer require 
childcare, they may not enter into the labour 
force due to obligations to care for elderly or 
sick relatives at home. 
There are differences by household income 
as well – better off women are more likely 
to be in formal sector jobs, and can afford to 
pay for childcare. However, poorer women 
often have to care for children, sick and 
elderly relatives themselves, leading to adverse 
consequences for both the recipients of care, 
and themselves. 
Retention and promotion in the labour force is 
also affected by women’s lifecycle stage – both 
in terms of the choices that they themselves 
make (in terms of choosing to not work, to 
work fewer or more flexible hours) and the 
way they are perceived by their employers 
(in terms of wages, career progression and 
types of jobs that they are offered).
BALANCING PAID WORK AND UNPAID CARE WORK TO ACHIEVE WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT ISSUE 83 • JANUARY 2015 www.ids.ac.uk
Lack of decent work for women 
domestic workers
Increasing poverty in many countries, coupled with 
structural adjustment programmes, declining agricultural 
sector and economic crises, has pushed many women and 
girls into the domestic labour market. With limited access 
to the formal job market and discrimination on the basis of 
gender, caste or class, ‘race’ or ethnicity, options for decent 
work are few. Furthermore, as most women are from poor 
households, they generally have little education and few 
marketable skills. With cleaning, cooking, child and elderly 
care often regarded as women’s work, paid domestic work 
becomes one of the few employment opportunities open 
to poor women. Being informal and performed outside 
the realm of labour regulations and social protections, 
domestic workers suffer significant disadvantages to those 
within the formal work environment. Female domestic 
workers are subjected to gender discrimination, prejudice 
and stereotyping in relation to their work, which is regarded 
as low status and accorded little value. As such, domestic 
workers tend to work longer hours, have lower wages, with 
fewer benefits, and less legal or social protections compared 
to most other wage workers. Additionally, they usually 
have no maternity leave, health care or pension provision 
(WIEGO 2014; ILO 2010).
BALANCING PAID WORK AND UNPAID CARE WORK TO ACHIEVE WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT ISSUE 83 • JANUARY 2015 www.ids.ac.uk
“A balance 
between paid 
work and 
unpaid care 
work would 
enable women 
to have the time, 
opportunity 
and choice to 
participate 
equally in 
society and 
the economy, 
thereby 
leading to 
empowerment.”
Acknowledging the burdens of unpaid 
care work on education and 
productivity
Women often end up in home-based work 
or other seemingly ‘non-skilled’ work because 
of lack of education. However, this gap in 
education or skills has often emerged from 
them having to drop out of school or further 
their skills because of the heavy burden of 
unpaid care work they have had to take on as 
adolescent girls. Poor living standards with no 
basic amenities such as lack of piped water 
adds the drudgery to women’s lives and thus 
limiting their prospects of better jobs or longer 
hours of paid work and leisure or rest time. 
A negative relationship is also at play between 
the level of unpaid care work and women’s 
engagement in the paid labour market. 
Research has found that working at home 
while performing household chores including 
care work negatively affects productivity. 
Women working at home (for example, 
working with livestock or handicrafts 
production) are able to do less work than 
women working in formal paid jobs (as 
export garment workers, teachers, non-
governmental organisation staff, nurses and 
health workers) or informal paid jobs outside 
of home (domestic work, agricultural and 
non-agricultural wage labour, petty trade and 
services). In addition, women working at home 
are even less likely to get assistance for their 
unpaid care work from other members of their 
family, as they are perceived to be at home. 
Addressing the double bind of 
restricted work opportunities and 
‘care-blindness’
This Policy Briefing illustrates that there is 
a chain of low paid, irregular, often unsafe, 
work, which, combined with a blindness 
to the work that they carry out within the 
home, binds women (and their children) 
into poverty and vulnerability – limiting the 
extent of their economic empowerment 
– both individually and inter-generationally. 
This effect is being noticed in programme 
implementation in a range of sectors. For 
example, in ActionAid’s ongoing Young 
Urban Women Project in India, Ghana and 
South Africa, there is a negative impact of 
the disproportionate burden of unpaid care 
work on marginalised women’s access to 
livelihoods and decent work opportunities, as 
well as their access to sexual and reproductive 
health rights.
Given this strong link, it is necessary to 
recognise this double bind and put in place 
policy measures in order for women to be 
able to participate fully and effectively in both 
the market and the care economy. Taking 
unpaid care work into account in policies and 
programmes has the potential to significantly 
strengthen the empowering outcomes of 
women’s participation in paid work. This will 
come about because support for unpaid care 
work will:
• Optimise women’s economic participation, 
by enabling them to work without 
deepening their time poverty, or worrying 
about the amount and quality of care their 
families are receiving. This in turn will help 
make it possible for them to choose better-
paid and more empowering types of work, 
rather than being forced into low-paid 
‘flexible’ work.
• Share the gains of women’s economic 
empowerment across all females in the 
family, so that younger girls and older 
women are not left to carry the burden 
and be disempowered as a result; and that 
economic benefits are not eroded because 
of the cost of substitute care. 
• Sustain the gains of women’s economic 
empowerment across generations, by 
ensuring that the quality of childcare 
improves rather than deteriorates, as a result 
of their mothers’ paid work.
It is critical to arrest the push into informal, 
unsafe and unregulated work, and to eradicate 
gender wage gaps and gender-based 
discrimination in the type of work that 
women and men are engaged in. A balance 
between paid work and unpaid care work 
would enable women to have the time, 
opportunity and choice to participate equally 
in society and the economy, thereby leading to 
empowerment.
IDS POLICY BRIEFING ISSUE 83 • JANUARY 2015 www.ids.ac.uk
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Further reading
Chopra, D. (2014) ‘Towards Gender 
Equality with Care-Sensitive 
Social Protection’, IDS Policy 
Briefi ng 49, Brighton: IDS
Fontana, M. (2014) ‘Gender-
Equitable Public Investment: 
How Time-Use Surveys Can 
Help’, IDS Policy Briefi ng 82, 
Brighton: IDS
ILO (2010) ‘Decent Work for 
Domestic Workers’, International 
Labour Conference, 99th Session 
Report IV(1), Geneva: 
International Labour 
Organization
Kabeer, N. (2012) Women’s 
Economic Empowerment and 
Inclusive Growth: Labour Markets 
and Enterprise Development, SIG 
Working Paper 2012/1, 
International Development 
Research Centre/Department 
for International Development
WIEGO (2014) Occupational 
Groups: Domestic Workers, 
http://wiego.org/informal-
economy/occupational-groups/
domestic-workers
(accessed 12 January 2015)
Credits
This IDS Policy Briefi ng was 
written by IDS Research Fellow, 
Deepta Chopra, in connection 
with the ‘Making Unpaid Care 
Visible’ stream of the UK 
Aid-funded programme on 
Infl uencing Policies to Support 
the Empowerment of Women 
and Girls and the Sida-funded 
programme on Gender Power 
and Sexuality. It was edited by 
Carol Smithyes. 
The opinions expressed are 
those of the author and do not 
necessarily refl ect the views of 
IDS. 
Readers are encouraged to 
quote and reproduce material 
from issues of IDS Policy Briefi ngs 
in their own publication. IDS 
requests due acknowledgement 
and quotes to be referenced as 
above.
AG Level 2 Output ID: 316
© Institute of Development Studies, 2015
ISSN 1479-974X
Recommendations
It is heartening to see the focus of the Open Working Group’s recommendations 
for the Sustainable Development Goals on gender equality and empowerment 
of women and girls. There is a stand-alone goal pertaining to the recognition of 
unpaid care work and domestic work. This calls for provision of public services, 
infrastructure and social protection, which resonate with the following policy 
recommendations to ensure economic empowerment is optimised, shared across 
families and sustained across generations: 
• Recognise that time poverty is a critical determinant of women’s poverty, 
and a critical determinant of their economic empowerment. Time-use surveys 
are a useful way to capture the contribution that women make to the economy. 
These can also be used to guide more effective allocation of public resources such 
that interventions like water and sanitation, education and health, employment 
creation, and social policies are adequately fi nanced. In addition, time-use survey 
analysis can highlight time spent on paid work, unpaid care work and leisure time 
for women and men, and seek to eradicate gender differentials in all of these areas. 
• Redistribute unpaid care work from poor families to the state through 
provision of public services, infrastructure and care-sensitive social protection. 
 – Investment in public service provision is critical to addressing time poverty. 
This includes provision of good quality crèches and pre-schools with fl exible 
opening hours, care services for the sick and elderly, and accessible education 
and health services. All these services need to be conveniently located and have 
reasonable opening hours. Most critically, they need to be affordable to poor 
women in order for the benefi ts of paid work to not be eroded by costs. 
 – Investment in infrastructural interventions that bring piped, clean water; 
electricity and sanitation services to poor communities, and safe and secure 
travel arrangements are critical to ensure that women and their families are 
able to maintain a positive balance between paid work and unpaid care work. 
 – Social protection interventions are a positive way to enable women to 
maintain this balance; however, these need to be care-sensitive.
 – The use of enabling technologies such as ICTs fuelled by renewable energy 
may be a creative solution to providing safe locations and environments 
for women to work in without creating time poverty or an imbalance 
between paid work, care work and leisure time. ICTs can also provide access 
to information and public services such as health and education, which can 
further women’s empowerment. 
• When creating employment opportunities for women, put regulations in 
place to ensure decent work that takes into account their unpaid care work 
responsibilities as per their lifecycle and family structure requirements.
This would help guarantee opportunities for fl exible working hours, decent and 
fair wages, maternity benefi ts, improved working conditions and safe working 
opportunities at a range of suitable locations.


Balancing Paid Work and Unpaid Care Work to Achieve Women’s Economic Empowerment

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Balancing Paid Work and Unpaid Care Work to Achieve Women’s Economic Empowerment

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