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Poor women most disadvantaged by unpaid care work

Published:Thursday | February 4, 2021 | 12:17 AMJudana Murphy/Gleaner Writer
Spanish Town resident Terry-Ann Miler doing her weekly laundry at home on Tuesday. The single mother of three said that care work has multiplied in the home since the onset of COVID-19 even as her main income stream has been cut.
Spanish Town resident Terry-Ann Miler doing her weekly laundry at home on Tuesday. The single mother of three said that care work has multiplied in the home since the onset of COVID-19 even as her main income stream has been cut.
Sixty-four-year-old Dorine Maragh of Salt Pond Road in St Catherine has assumed responsibility for taking care of her grandson since his father died more than a decade ago.
Sixty-four-year-old Dorine Maragh of Salt Pond Road in St Catherine has assumed responsibility for taking care of her grandson since his father died more than a decade ago.
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A time-use study undertaken in the 2018 Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (JSLC) has revealed that Jamaican women carry a greater burden of unpaid domestic and care work in the home.

Women spend an estimated 294 minutes – or about five hours – carrying out these tasks daily, compared to men’s 172 minutes, or just under three hours.

Unpaid care work constitutes almost half of total global work time and includes looking after children, elderly people, as well as daily domestic work like cooking, gardening, cleaning and washing, among other chores.

Without someone investing time, effort and resources in these essential daily tasks, communities and workplaces would grind to a halt.

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 5.4.1 aims to recognise and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies, and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family.

Deputy dean of social policy and integrated research methods at The University of the West Indies, Mona, Dr Heather Ricketts, explained that the poorest respondents spend a mean of 304 minutes, or six hours per day, engaged in unpaid care work, while the wealthiest spend 215 minutes, or three and a half hours, because they are better able to afford household helpers, gardeners and nannies.

When disaggregated by union status, the data showed that women in common-law relationships and married women use more time to do unpaid work than single women or those in visiting relationships.

THE GRANDPARENTS’ LOT

Dorine Maragh, 63, exited the labour force to assume full responsibility for her three-year-old grandson when his father was killed by the police more than a decade ago.

The Salt Pond Road, St Catherine resident has often thought about seeking employment again, but it is not feasible, owing to a health condition.

“I just live off the likkle that my son or daughter may give me. Things may bright sometimes and things may rough, because him still going to school and me haffi a supervise him,” she explained.

Deloris Rhoomes has two daughters who are employed and she devotes her time to look after their children, ages 13, three years and four months old.

“I’ve been taking care of them since they were born. I made the choice to take care of them. My husband finances me and the fathers of my grandchildren support them,” Rhoomes outlined.

She spends “basically the whole day” tending to the house and the needs of her grandchildren, noting that sometimes the parents do not return home until 7 p.m.

Decades ago, when she was raising her four children, she opted to stay at home with them out of a fear that they could be abused by caregivers.

“I felt insecure leaving my children with others, so the only time I worked was on weekends, to do a little selling. Their father didn’t work on weekends, so he was at home,” the 61-year-old recalled.

Rhoomes added that if she were living in proximity to family members at the time, she would have been able to seek employment to provide a more sustainable income.

LOCKED IN BY CARE DUTIES

Terry-Ann Miller, a single mother of three, lives in Waterloo Lane, Spanish Town.

When The Gleaner visited her home on Tuesday, she was doing the laundry, one of the many household tasks she carries out on a weekly basis.

Miller disclosed that she has been yearning to pursue studies in nursing, but her care duties at home have multiplied since the COVID-19 pandemic, when online classes became the new normal and her income was slashed.

“Mi did have a bar work and mi did have to pay somebody to keep them, because mi can’t leave dem alone. When a mi week off, mi tek care a dem,” explained the 39-year-old mother, whose youngest child is five.

Now, she jumps at every opportunity to earn a little cash, whether it’s a day’s work on a construction site or a constituency clean-up project.

Camecia Vassell, a grade six teacher, estimates that she spends more than six hours per day doing unpaid care work.

“I used to try to cover all grounds by myself. However, I found that it was taking so much away from my productivity as a teacher,” she explained.

Vassell eventually hired someone to carry out household duties and tend to her three-year-old daughter while she teaches online classes.

She explained that unpaid care hours still remain high as she implemented COVID-19 protocols at home, which require extra cleaning and stricter supervision of her children.

During a United Nations (UN) Women webinar on Wednesday, UN Women Multi-Country Office – Caribbean representative Tonni Ann Brodber highlighted that care work is crucial to societies and economies.

“UN Women has been at the forefront of work to recognise, reduce, represent and reward unpaid care work globally and regionally. We need to prioritise unpaid care work if we are to build back equal,” she said, adding that globally, 42 per cent of women of working age are outside of the labour force because of unpaid care responsibilities.

The JSLC will be published in the coming months and will include a chapter dedicated to time-use and unpaid care and domestic work.

judana.murphy@gleanerjm.com