Care work
Topic: Employment, Unemployment and Informalisation · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Care work is work that meets other people's physical, emotional and developmental needs. Examples are feeding a child, nursing a sick person or looking after an elderly parent. It can be paid, as with nurses and domestic workers, or unpaid, as with care given at home by family members. Most unpaid care is done by women and is left out of GDP. Care work is also seen as a growing source of new jobs.
Example
A nurse in a government hospital and a paid domestic worker both do paid care work. A mother who looks after her children and her ailing father-in-law at home does unpaid care work. It is just as real, but it is not counted in GDP.
Don't confuse with
- Unpaid care work: this covers only the unpaid part (caring for household members plus domestic chores). Care work is the wider idea and includes paid care jobs too.
Related concepts
- Female labour force participation rate
- U-shaped female labour force participation
- Unpaid work of women
- Unpaid care work
- Double burden
- Feminisation of agriculture
- Gender wage gap
- Glass ceiling