Unrecognized Value of Women’s Unpaid Care Work

“Gender Equality in China's Economic Transformation” was published October 2014 and was the collaborative efforts of UN Women, UN Systems in China and experts from Peking University and National Women’s University. It covers gender issues in the labor market during China’s economic transformation and the causes of gender disparity and inequality in three selected areas: employment opportunities, income and unpaid labor.

Care work refers to direct care for people, which includes not only physical activities of providing care, but also construction of emotional bonds and demonstration of care for the recipients. Care work is different from work of other forms in three ways. First, care work entails care and love for the persons being cared for. Second, labor input is the most important factor in care work. Third, family care has an external economic and spillover effect.

The report explains that after the market-oriented economic reform, public services were taken over by the market and families. When the public services provided by the market can no longer meet the needs of families and when families can no longer afford family care services, the responsibilities of family care fall back on women’s shoulders.In addition, unpaid care work also affects women’s individual rights, capacities and autonomy. One study showed an adverse relationship between elderly care and self-evaluated health conditions. Taking care of parents increased the psychological and physical stress of married women.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics’ time-use survey shows that the traditional gender stereotype of “men working outside and women staying at home” still affects modern family life. Unpaid work takes up only 20.2% of men’s time, but 47.1% in women’s case. This phenomenon is more prominent in rural areas, where women spend over three times as much time as men on unpaid work, including spending four times as much time as men on taking care of children.

According to Dong and An’s (2012) analysis of the time-use survey data in China in 2008, the value created by unpaid care work was equal to 25% to 32% of China’s GDP, 52% to 66% of China’s consumption, and 63% to 80% of China’s gross output value. However, the value of women’s unpaid housework and their contribution to the family and to the society are not recognized in the market economy. Instead, unpaid housework hinders women from entering the labor market.

New Home Economics assumes that both the wife and the husband’s interests are altruistic, that is, they care about the interests of each other’s instead of their own. Generally the market wage of the husband is higher than that of the wife, and the household productivity of the wife is higher than that of the husband, therefore a pattern is formed where the husband is engaged in market labor while the wife is engaged in housework. Dedicating themselves to housework makes women financially dependent on others, and they would lose their source of income when widowed or divorced.

Given the shortcomings in New Home Economics theory, Feminist Economics holds that the gender roles of men and women are socially constructed, and that people’s behaviors and decisions are shaped by customs, institutions, laws and regulations. Traditional gender norms reinforce the gendered division of labor through the interaction between the labor market and marriage market, which in turn reinforces traditional gender norms. People take it for granted that women should be the caregiver while at the same time the contribution of women’s care work is not fully recognized or economically valued.

Women with low educational attainment and from low-income families have a higher probability of withdrawing from the labor market and a lower probability of using formal nursery services. For working women, the higher educational attainment their husbands have, the higher the probability of them using formal nursery services. In urban areas, wages of women with children is also 20% less than that of their childless counterparts.