The care economy is the most foundational ingredient of a resilient economy. Where then, is the recognition?

The sound of my childhood is many things. It’s waking up to an auntie aggressively sweeping the floor, knocking things over as she makes her way through the room and haphazardly putting them back. It’s the sound of the pressure cooker, the tawa sizzling, the tandoor crackling away as sweet potatoes bathe in the heat of the coal. In almost every way, the sound of every average Indian child is also the silent one of compliance, to the system that is brazen in its onerous ways, to the family that unknowingly falls victim to this system, and the realisation that eventually accompanies it. 

Compliance, in this context, is borne from the sentiment that really has no viable response, no widely feasible solution, except a few, but that discussion will perhaps be better suited for the latter part of this piece. “Agar main nahi karungi, toh kaun karega? (If I don’t do it, who will?)” That is exactly why the question of how to include the care economy into traditional economic activities has left economists hanging. It’s because care is elusive; the methodological fundamentalism of any study that involves the economy or the economic being requires that the rationality assumption be fulfilled. This is where the concept of the ‘rational economic man’ comes into the picture, and why the care economy fundamentally cannot function within a historically orthodox mainstream or neoclassical framework, because care itself isn’t driven by rationality in any sense. Love, concern, responsibility, and obligation may motivate care work, but rationality may neither be achievable nor conceivable as an option for most care workers. If it were so, most mothers, domestic workers, and home nurses would not be doing what they are, and instead engage in economic activities that are traditionally more ‘productive’. 

The important point to consider here is that the care economy is absolutely essential. Of course, this is a historically recognised fact, but it cannot be ignored that certain sections of society must bear the burden of not only providing care work, but having it remain hidden, unrecognised, and as a service existing in perpetuity. This is where the issue lies. First of all, by restricting endless aspirations, individual nuances and souls behind the obligation of care–without which the economy would falter completely, there remains no real possibility of redistribution. The heteronormative structure that divides familial responsibility is efficient, and is definitely rational, but whether it is equitable, or even realistic in the humanistic sense, is the question we must ask ourselves. Secondly, we all have heard non-participants in the care economy singing praises of those who function under it. What they do is selfless, they say, the hallmark of a good, responsible caretaker and person; they are just as they should be, there is no other place for them to exist in. All of this is an illusion to distract from the reality of the situation, the fact that as soon as there are people performing obligatory economic activities with no true compensation (except perhaps the validation of those they care for, or maybe society) or a wage of any kind, it reduces their bargaining power almost to oblivion. They become passive participants in the political and economic diaspora of their environment and, in a way, displace the control over their own fate.

In India, especially, once we consider care and extended care activities that the classical economic models generally ignore, the labour force participation rate for females (in the heteronormative structure) increases dramatically, three or four- fold in comparison to when they are not included. What this means is that there is a particularly large chunk of society in the country right now, which is moving from working in a recognisable space where there is formal compensation, to unpaid, unrecognised work. Isn’t that deeply concerning?

This is a complex situation to resolve because creating a distributive care economy would, firstly, require an overturning of generations of psychosocial training, and secondly, entail authorities to acknowledge that there is even a requirement to overturn a system that fundamentally operates in their favour. When care work is outsourced, as many Indian households do, it creates a supply chain that leads to the same outcome for another individual. For example, if a domestic helper is paid to cook and clean for a particular household, they would not have enough time to do the same at home. It is then likely that, if they have the means to, they outsource their care work as well (or train future care workers within the family) or exist in a perpetual state of “time poverty”. There simply isn’t enough time to work, to care for children or elderly family members, and to care for the house as a whole, while still caring for oneself. The most important thing that gets lost here is recognizability, monetary and otherwise, and there must be a way to regain it. Perhaps, it is otherwise false to claim that we enjoy a democratic setup when so many people aren’t even given space to exist within it. 

Image credits: Carlin, a Peruvian political cartoonist

Read also: When Reclamation Becomes Recklessness, But the Fight for Respect Becomes a Spectacle

Manya Marwah

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