Source: The Guardian
Care is a central pillar of society, yet conventional development thinking fails to acknowledge its economic importance.

Much of the work that takes place outside the market economy is ignored by policymakers, because economic activity is conventionally understood to be about making money.

This includes not only unpaid work in family farms and businesses but also the provision of food, care, and material and other needs to families and neighbours. Caring forms the bedrock of human wellbeing and replenishes the human resources needed for sustainable economic development. Everyone has the right to receive adequate care and the right not to be exploited when providing care.

In most countries, women undertake the bulk of unpaid care work. In developing countries, where there is less access to labour-saving technologies and – for poor families – irregular or difficult access to water and energy supplies, women work longer hours caring than men. Poor women work longer hours than better-off women, and rural women work longer hours than urban women. The invisibility and undervaluing of care work also have an impact on women's wages as domestic workers, and in jobs such as nursing and caring for children and the elderly. Until challenged by feminists, women's caring role was "natural", and thus not identified as requiring a policy response.

Conventional development thinking emphasises economic growth over human wellbeing (PDF) and ignores care as a public good that sustains society and on which markets depend for their functioning. Women's resilience may not last for ever, so it is urgent that we work for an alternative economic system that reflects and places a value on equitable relations between women and men.

Common assumptions about how the economy works need to be challenged (PDF) in this time of global crisis because they risk bringing greater misery and impoverishment to those least able to protect themselves from collapsing markets.

Over the past 30 years, women have entered the market economy in increasing numbers. Most have to juggle paid activities and unpaid care work. As a result, they are frequently employed on a part-time or piecework basis where wages are lower, employment less secure, and collective action or negotiation more difficult.

These changes have coincided in some countries with a decline in state provision and everywhere with an increased involvement of the market in care (PDF). Women who can afford to do so hire poorer women, often underpaid and overworked, and, in many parts of the world, subject to racial discrimination.

Care is a public good that sustains and reproduces society. Yet, despite the evidence of its importance – backed by research findings – most development organisations remain blind to all but the paid, visible forms of women's economic contribution. Development policies and programmes have failed to address the interconnected interests of women as producers, employees and carers with negative effects for individual, family and social wellbeing.

Neglecting care has political advantages. It allows governments to pass on care costs to families and communities, rather than financing care as a public good. At the same time, those women most overwhelmed with care responsibilities are the ones with the least voice and chance to influence policy choices. The neglect of care is the greatest scandal of development policy.

Care's importance to the economy and society must be recognised; for example by integrating unpaid care into systems of national accounts. Recognition will encourage development agencies and governments to do more to reduce the drudgery through labour-saving technologies and reliable access to water and energy supplies.

Support must also be given to redistributing care more equitably, not only within families, but also among and between families and other providers of care services (community-based and non-governmental organisations, the private sector and state agencies).

More politically challenging is the maintenance and expansion of core public services to reduce unpaid care work. This is why global and local debates are needed for people to reimagine potentially diverse ways in which their social and political economy could be reordered so that care is recognised and properly supported as the foundation for living well together. Philanthropic foundations could:

• Take the lead in demonstrating the importance they attach to the issue by examining the extent to which they have recognised and addressed care in the programmes they finance.

• Integrate care responsibilities and activities into the design of future development activities.

• Actively challenge the assumptions informing existing economic development models that render care invisible.

• Encourage and support worldwide debates among diverse audiences about how to change our economic models to integrate unpaid care work.

This article is based on a paper (PDF) by Rosalind Eyben commissioned for the Bellagio Initiative