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This article is authored by Grace Wambui Arina, Feminist Tax Initiative-Lead (TJNA/NAWI)
There is no one definition for unpaid care work, it encompasses undertaking domestic chores and caring for loved ones and is the backbone of thriving families, communities and economies the world over. As it stands, women and girls are more likely to undertake poorly paid and precarious employment and to shoulder the burden of unpaid and underpaid care work. Over and above working for free at home, most poor women undertake domestic work, providing care for others. This is because the current neoliberal economic framework perpetuates gender inequality by actively exploiting and disempowering women and girls, counting on them to do this work, but failing to value them for it.
It is the same broken neoliberal framework that is shaping the response to the neoliberalism problem. This faulty framework is perpetuated by International Financial Institutions (IFIs) such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank which are at the top of the global financial architecture and have been the primary promoters of privatization, deregulation, fiscal consolidation (austerity measures) enforced worldwide for the past several decades and have since intensified these measures post-COVID leading to significant reductions in public expenditure. As a result, the burden of the various accruing crises from these measures has shifted to those who can least afford it. Women, in particular, have taken on the role of shock absorbers during times of austerity and crisis.
Currently, the social organisation of care, that is; how care needs are satisfied, the relationship between unpaid care work, (under)paid care work, public and private provisioning, and community-based care arrangements is fundamentally unbalanced, unequal, and ultimately unsustainable.
In Africa for example, care is deeply ingrained in the region’s social fabric which promotes unity, community, and reconciliation. Care is part and parcel of daily life and is influenced by cultural customs, traditional beliefs, and social conventions, with women undertaking the lion’s share of the work. This gendered division of labour hinders their educational, leadership, social, and economic opportunities. Moreover, the patriarchal nature of the region’s society significantly influences care work and reinforces gender inequalities.
Globally, the care economy is growing due to the increase in care demands, hence it is a hub for new opportunities. However, the sector is currently wrought with a general lack of social protections, low to no compensation and exposure to physical, mental and sexual harm in some cases. From a macroeconomic perspective, the care economy can be understood as a major determinant in several economic outcomes including Gross Domestic Product (GDP), job creation, income generation, workforce output, social mobility, and more.
Governments justify their inability to achieve women’s rights by pointing to insufficient funds while, the international tax system and the neoliberal economic framework, both of which are ineffective, perpetuate the extraction of wealth from the Global South and concentrate it among a small elite, predominantly men from the Global North.
Moreover, Global South countries, following advice from IFIs continue to tax the poorest by implementing austerity measures and regressive taxation. They continue to rely on indirect taxes such as VAT which evidence proves places a disproportionate burden on women carers and those in the informal work sector who are more likely to spend a significant amount of their income on the essential goods and services they consume to sustain their livelihoods.
Countries’ failure to recognize the importance of the care economy has led to costly inequalities because care work is primarily undertaken by women. This oversight has downplayed the demand for care goods and services, lowered the socio-economic value of care as a public good and delayed the development of regulatory frameworks to address the gaps.
It is high time for Governments to agnize the social and economic value of care work, paid or not as it is not just an essential part of the daily reproduction of life but is the foundation upon which life itself exists and it should therefore be recognised as a fundamental human right.
Countries must integrate care work into their economies by incorporating the 5R’s: Reducing the burden of unpaid care work on women, Redistributing the existing sexual division of labour, Reclaiming the public nature of care services and restoring the duty of the state to provide public services by financing state’s capacity through domestic resource mobilization and inculcating fair and progressive taxes into their taxation framework, Recognising the socio-economic value of care work, be it paid or not and Rewarding, Remunerating and Representing care work and care workers equally by; providing fair compensation, that is; equal pay for equal work, adequate pensions, comprehensive social protections, healthy and safe working conditions and upholding their right to organise through unionization and collective bargaining.
Additionally, to ensure tax revenue is spent in ways that promote gender equality and provide transformative quality public services, governments must implement gender-responsive budgeting, stop illicit financial flows (IFFs) and aggressive tax-planning practices that facilitate tax abuses, including tax avoidance and bias toward wealthy nations and multinational corporations because they unfairly deny governments the resources they need to support women's rights.
For further information about the Global Days of Action on Tax Justice for Women’s Rights, please contact Grace Arina at garina[@]taxjusticeafrica.net.