In 2020, a group of activists from the Global Women’s Strike and Care Income Now! got together to talk about the need to survey mothers and other caregivers about what they want. For decades, these activists have been campaigning for the recognition of and compensation for unpaid care work, and more recently, for the expanded Child Tax Credit in the US.
They recognized that policy makers seldom, if ever, ask mothers and caregivers what they need or want and that legislation intended to help them is scarce and often beholding to special interests. For example, the child care provisions in the Build Back Better Bill fund particular child-care systems rather than providing individual families with cash to make their own choices, including caring for their own children.
Unpaid work has value
The activists from the Global Women’s Strike have been successful in gaining recognition for the value of unpaid work. They negotiated language to measure and value unpaid work at two United Nations World Conferences and, as a result, the UN now recommends that both paid and unpaid work be counted in national accounts, like GDP. From Unpaid Work and Policy-Making: Towards Broader Perspective of Work and Employment:
United Nations studies and other research have estimated how much unpaid work is done and by whom. On average, unpaid working time amounts to hours a week which are comparable to hours worked in paid employment. The burden of unpaid work and paid work respectively are distributed unequally between men and women. As a result, ‘men receive the lion’s share of income and recognition for their economic contribution — while most of women’s work remains unpaid, unrecognized and undervalued’ (UNDP, 1995).
More recently, the Green New Deal for Europe called for a care income to recognize care work done in the home, on the land, and in support of the environment.
The survey
This comprehensive survey created by Care Income Now! and the Global Women’s Strike, “What Mothers and Other Caregivers Want,” seeks to find out how mothers and caregivers spend their time, has questions about both paid and unpaid work, hopes to discover the resources mothers and caregivers have or don’t have, and asks them what they need.
It was created with input from mothers, caregivers, and those cared for, in the US, the UK, Thailand, South America and Italy and is currently available in four languages: English, Spanish, Thai and Italian. More languages will be added.
Mothers and caregivers speak out
The webinar that launched the survey included diverse stories from Thailand, Peru, Canada, Nigeria, Myanmar, Scotland, India, Ireland, the US and the UK. Here are some excerpts.
Mai is part of the Women’s Human Rights Defenders Collective in Thailand, which represents 19 different communities.
We are women caring for and defending the land, environment, and indigenous peoples. We are women demanding justice from our livelihoods such as sex workers, factory workers, migrant workers, and street vendors. We are women from slum communities insisting on housing and an end to poverty. We are disabled women, single mums and other women struggling for democracy. We are all caring for our families, communities, and society.
Carolyn is a grandmother from the United States, whose three grandchildren are in her custody.
In 2011, I was taking care of two of my nieces when the child welfare department took them from me because I was poor and lived in public housing, even though the children were doing well in my care. I was racially profiled. Recently, because of COVID, the government gave people caring for children a Child Tax Credit of $250 to $300 a month per child. With that money I was able to catch up on my bills. We had pizza night, movie night, Taco Tuesdays. We could do things together. It helped the kids focus. If I had had the Child Tax Credit back when I had my nieces, they might not have been taken from me. Now the Child Tax Credit has stopped. I am back in the poorhouse again. I’m scared my grandchildren will be taken by the system.
“Elizabeth” from Myanmar is a mother of two daughters who works providing services for migrant workers and their families.
The military coup has increased the stress and workload of women; we prepare emergency bags, ready to run if needed. We must be alert at all times especially at night because the security forces can come to our homes and arrest us. We also have to be strong and not show our fear to protect our children from nightmares and feelings of insecurity. For women in ethnic areas, the situation is even worse with air strikes forcing them to take their children and a few belongings and hide in the jungle. Currently the military does not allow humanitarian organizations to access the conflict areas. At this time, we cannot depend on anyone to change things for us, we can only depend on ourselves. The struggle for democracy must go hand in hand with the struggle for equality and equity; for respect for the work we do and our place in the home, in the workplace and in the future of the country.
Miriam is an agroecologist from Italy.
Although my work is fundamental for my territory and, more generally, for the world plagued by climate change, no one knows the enormous amount of time, effort and dedication that it requires. Everything is to be combined with the practical management of my small business and with the needs of my family: like so many rural women, I am a productive and silent plant which, in a landscape that I myself have helped to flourish, is no longer noticed. Where are the policies that should support me when I’m sick or too tired, or can’t work? If I have to take care of my daughter or my elderly mother? And where is the time to take care of myself? What I need therefore is for my work to be recognized as a mirror of who I am and of everything I do: there is no separation between caring for myself, caring for the land, caring for loved ones and caring for my territory.
Bonita, a Mi’kmaq professor of Indigenous studies at York University and leading Canadian scholar of Indigeneity, spoke of the the systemic discrimination against Indigenous children in Canada. Thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their families and put in Indian residential schools in order to assimilate them into the dominant society. In fact, it was illegal for Indigenous children to be educated any other way until 1947. Children were and continue to be taken from their families by the government, on the pretext of poverty or addiction, to be adopted by non-Indigenous families. More Indigenous children are put into foster care in Canada, than any other ethnicity.
Leddy organizes domestic workers in unions in Peru and campaigns for the economic recognition of unpaid domestic work.
The caring work that mothers do in the home is not valued because it is not paid. So women are impoverished and many of us are forced to work in other people’s homes, often from when we were children. The work we do as domestic workers is also caring work because we care for lives. We also take care of our own families.
Lovely from Nigeria is part of the All Africa Women’s Group.
I am a mother of five children between 12 and 24. I lived in the countryside where we do a lot of farming. I am now a refugee. I had to escape domestic violence which a lot of women are facing. I was forced to leave my children behind and it took me over 10 years to be reunited with them. The whole time I wasn’t with them, I was still caring for them, paying the hospital bills and the school fees even though I had no money. It was a big struggle. The children were always on my mind. It was a perpetual pain. What I was suffering, they were suffering too — we were suffering together. Society doesn’t care about mothers. As a result, a lot of mothers and children lose their lives. Many women are forced to live with violent men, or to go into prostitution to put food on the table.
Eric from the United States was a family caregiver for his partner’s mother.
My partner Tonya and I took care of her mother in her own home until she passed away in 2017. Despite having the crucial supports of home health workers a few hours a week and an adult day program, we were often overwhelmed with the stresses of being ultimately responsible for another human being 24/7 — particularly my partner, who was her primary caregiver. Like many women facing the “double day”, I often felt that my waged work was the easier and less stressful of my jobs. We did not receive any money for this work. If we want to make it possible for more people to choose to do this work, particularly men who have relied on women to do this work, we have to confront the fact that when you set out to truly care for a loved one, particularly someone vulnerable to abuse as is an older person with disabilities, you soon find yourself in a struggle against an industry that prioritizes making money off the people they are supposed to care for and off us. Caring changes you.
Links to the surveys
Here are links to the survey in four languages. Please share widely. Email here if you’re interested in translating the survey into another language or you want more information.
The survey will help mothers and caregivers all over the world to stimulate conversation and to stand up for themselves, knowing that they are not alone. Hopefully, it can help policy makers create legislation that more accurately reflects what is in the best interests of mothers, caregivers and those cared for. While their contribution to society is vital and indispensable, they are seldom asked what they need or given a voice in the policies that affect them. This survey could change that.