Everyday Superheroes: Exploring Unpaid Care Work By Women

World Bank | The Development Podcast

What impact does unpaid care work have on women's economic prospects and growth? How can we support these everyday superheroes? In this episode of The Development Podcast, we explore the economics around this issue, whether women are tending to children or the elderly. What goes into this often invisible workload, and how do the burdens these women carry affect their every day lives?

We draw from recent findings of this year’s 2023 Women, Business, and the Law report and also speak with three guests: Laura Rawlings, Lead Economist for the World Bank’s Gender Group, Nguyen Thi Kieu Trang (KT), Marketing and Communications Manager with CARE International in Vietnam, and Jyoti Macwan, General Secretary at the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and former tobacco worker, who share their insights and own experiences in the struggles women continue to face today but also steps women—and men—can take in the fight for gender equality. Listen now!

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Featured Voices

• Laura Rawlings, Lead Economist for the World Bank’s Gender Group. "A lot of the disproportionate distribution of unpaid work and lack of access to affordable quality care is one of the key constraints impacting female labor force participation."
• Nguyen Thi Kieu Trang (KT), Marketing and Communications Manager with CARE International in Vietnam. "The prejudice about the unpaid care work is changing. Men taking care of more of their housework and share with their women more."
• Jyoti Macwan, General Secretary at the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). "So the childcare centers were started in the villages, and that's how they [women in a tobacco-growing village in India] were able to go regularly to their workplaces."

Timestamps

[00:00] Welcome and introduction of the topic

[01:29] Recent data about women's lives and livelihoods

[04:48] Visions from India: Struggles for women in the informal sector

[09:16] Visions from Vietnam: Women in rural areas and care workload

[11:21] Gender inequality: The importance of addressing unpaid care

[15:04] The impact of the pandemic around the world

[19:37] Closure and thanks for tuning in!

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The World Bank is one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge for low-income countries. Its five institutions share a commitment to reducing poverty, increasing shared prosperity, and promoting sustainable development.