Women key to fix economy
It is the invisible parts of our society that we need to turn to in our recovery endeavours
THE very available economic measure we have points to the continued relegation of women to the periphery of South Africa’s broken economy.
If we want to fix that, it is to the invisible parts of our economy that we need to turn.
Economist Nthabiseng Moleko focuses on how women’s disadvantage in the economy is tied to disparities in the labour market. She correctly points out that women are less likely to participate in the labour force than men, less likely to find employment and, when they do find work, it is more often in poorly paid, low-skilled jobs.
Moleko describes the dismal macroeconomic position we find ourselves in and says that an alternative economic strategy is imperative if we are to create sufficient jobs to absorb the scores of unemployed women (and men) in the labour market.
The problems have deepened amid the Covid-19 pandemic and the need for a different path forward has become all the more urgent.
However, any alternative way forward needs to recognise an important aspect of women’s contribution to the economy that Moleko makes only passing reference to – the unpaid care work women do.
Across the world, women spend large parts of their day in unpaid caring labour – caring for the home, children, the elderly, the sick and their communities. This work is largely overlooked and undervalued, certainly in mainstream economic theory and policy, and yet it is vital to the reproduction of labour for the paid economy and to the survival of a well-functioning society.
While caring labour can have its own non-pecuniary rewards, it is often emotionally and physically taxing, and it is costly in terms of time and money. Survey data from across the world show that women continue to shoulder the bulk of the work, and it has implications for their well-being and standard of living. With only 24 hours in a day, housework and caring labour reduces the hours women can spend on leisure activities and the time and energy women can allocate to their education and pursuing job opportunities.
The first step towards recognising the importance of unpaid work is to measure it and quantify its value. Attempts by feminist economists across the world to do this have produced estimates of gross national income that are between 25% and 50% higher than if only paid work is included. To do this, however, requires data on time use. South Africa was a maverick among developing countries in this respect, with time use surveys conducted in 2000 and 2010. But we are sorely in need of an additional wave to capture longer-term trends in how women and men allocate their time.
We also need to go beyond measurement and ensure that all policy is evaluated through a gendered lens. There needs to be recognition that paid and unpaid work can be affected by government policies, that the paid economy relies on the unpaid economy and vice versa, and that men and women’s roles are unevenly distributed across the two spheres.
As feminist economists have long warned, overlooking how gender roles shape our lives can lead to unintended or negative policy outcomes. For instance, attempts to draw women into the labour market through improved pay and employment opportunities might be stymied by women’s responsibilities in the home.
Cuts in social spending, particularly on education, health and childcare, similar to those imposed by the Treasury in this year’s Budget, will place more pressure on women to pick up the slack. Given gendered living arrangements, the knock-on effects for children will be dire.
As long as women remain the primary caregivers in society, gender inequalities in employment, pay and access to resources will persist. If policies are ever going to make a difference in the lives of women, they need to recognise the different socially ascribed roles men and women have assumed and the different constraints they face as a result. Supporting women in their care-giving role through transfers such as the child support grant is crucial. There is considerable evidence that the grants help reduce the depth of poverty among children and their caregivers, and lead to better health and education among children. But at R460 a month, the grant is well below even the food poverty line of R585.
More substantive change will require policy that tackles the deepseated structural constraints women face. Social norms around who should be responsible for domestic and care work in the home must be challenged.
The responsibility for care work cannot fall on the individual only. There needs to be a much bigger public investment in care infrastructure, so that women (and men) with care responsibilities can enter the labour force if they choose to do so.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on the importance of the social provisioning of care, and several countries, among them the US, are starting to take this more seriously. Some will say South Africa can’t afford this. But if we don’t find a way to, every time we claim to care about gender equality we will simply be paying lip service to the cause.