Corporations will be equally hiring men and women based on their skills and knowledge in the future.

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© 2012 Sage Publications 10.1177/146499341201200402

 Gender, family and care provision in developing countries: Towards gender equality

almudena Moreno Mínguez

Department of Sociology and Social Work, University of Valladolid, Spain

Abstract: This article describes the way in which the scientific literature approaches the issue of gender and care in developing countries, and also examines some of the main analytical trends which have contributed to this debate. The analysis of the documentation published on this subject is far from exhaustive. These works are also partially biased, and tend to base their analyses of care from a gender perspective in developing countries on certain conceptual and theoretical works on care which take as their point of reference the capitalist economies in developed countries. The analysis presented in this article therefore endeavours to go beyond economicist interpretations of development by introducing the gender perspective, and seeks to quantify unpaid care work in relation to gender equality. The aim of this research work is to contribute empirical evidence on the reproduction of gender inequality in the context of developing countries in the light of feminist theories by going beyond economicist approaches to economic and social development. The analysis essentially involves measuring the amount of paid and unpaid work done by women as compared to men using secondary data from different statistical sources compiled by the project carried out by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) on Political and Social economy of Care. Thus, the basic objective of this work is to provide empirical evidence to highlight the importance of care in achieving gender equality, by developing social and gender policies designed to neutralise these inequalities and thereby to advance the construction of a social and democratic citizenship with no gender distinctions, in the context of developing countries.

Key words: family, gender, unpaid work, care, social policy, development context

I Introduction Over the past two to three decades, signifi- cant changes have occurred in the social and economic status of women that have helped reduce gender inequalities. Such changes in women’s lives are associated with the social transformations that accompany economic development. according to a number of recent studies, economic development does

not necessarily reduce gender gaps in earnings or enhance women’s economic autonomy. In fact, some patterns of growth and structural change are premised on, and reinforce, gender inequalities in the family (Kabeer, 1994; Razavi, 2007a; Razavi and Hassim, 2006).

The underlying aim of the research pre- sented in this article is to reflect on the significance of gender equality in developing

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countries, focusing the analysis on the ways in which social changes induced by globalization and the policies enacted by the various nations affect the transformation and/or reproduction of gender roles in the sphere of paid and unpaid work. The article takes a general approach to developing countries, and does not assume a particular set of characteristics for a specific country, in view of the difficulties involved in making an individual analysis of each region and state. although this kind of analysis impedes comparison due to the diversity of cultural, economic and religious contexts, it does how- ever enable the contextualization of emerging or continuing trends and patterns in develop- ing countries. Most of these countries have undergone, to a greater degree than Western countries, accelerated processes of change as a result of the globalizing process, and at the same time are resistant to change owing to the traditional culture embedded in the structure of their societies, norms and institutions. In summary, this research work aims to contrib- ute empirical evidence on the reproduction of gender inequality in the context of developing countries in the light of feminist theories, and attempts to go beyond economicist interpre- tations of economic and social development. The analysis, therefore, essentially involves measuring the amount of paid and unpaid work done by women as compared to men, in order to provide empirical evidence which may be of use in designing social and gender policies to enable these inequalities to be neutralized and to advance the construction of a social and democratic citizenship without gender distinction.

The article begins its reflection with a critique of the economicist viewpoints which considers the economic development of these countries in purely economic terms, disregard- ing the relevance of social policy as a key instru- ment for reducing social inefficiencies in the market and achieving a democratic citizenship based on the principles of gender equality. This work, thus, attempts to highlight the value of the unpaid work carried out by women and

to visualize the gender inequalities existing in these development contexts using the infor- mation contributed by a variety of statistical sources. This requires taking meticulous care when implementing sociological concepts commonly used in the West to explain gender inequality, as the application of notions such as agency, preferences or welfare regime are of limited use in satisfactorily explaining the processes occurring in these countries, as gender roles are embedded in traditional cul- tural contexts which restrict the options of the individual, and in many cases are determined by social structures.

This research work synthesizes a range of empirical theoretic contributions from various reports and secondary information sources. The indicators used here generally measure the value and the significance of unpaid work carried out by women and the importance of care work, based on various indicators from a range of statistical sources. although the methodological strategy used in this research is limited due to the fact that the available data do not always permit the rigorous and accu- rate measurement of the real significance of paid/unpaid work or care to citizens – owing to the incidence of cultural and institutional factors – it does however enable us to compare trends on gender equality in these develop- ment contexts, which would otherwise remain unseen. The analysis also aims to measure the economic contribution to the economy repre- sented by unpaid work – generally by women as compared to paid work – mainly by men.

In short, this article underlines the complex nature of gender inequalities in developing countries. These are reflected in the political and economic structures of a country (including its labour markets and the family), which gen- erate specific types of exploitation and mate- rial deprivation. But they also reflect the way society is structured in terms of cultural values and social norms that are embedded across a wide spectrum of institutions in both private and public life. Inequalities in these areas can lead to the misrepresentation and devaluation

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of women, subjecting them to discrimination, exclusion and violence (Fraser, 1997).

The final section of the article presents a reflection on the need to develop family and gender policies in these developmental contexts which contribute to reducing gender inequalities, encourage shared responsibil- ity between the sexes and promote female employment in conditions of equality. In fact, in a globalizing context, family policies become a key instrument in developing countries for promoting the empowerment of women, considered in their dual role as mothers and workers. The secondary data provided in this work underline the need to develop social and gender policies which in the long term bring about changes in social policies in order to generate a shift in attitudes and values with regard to family work and paid work. This is fundamental in view of the fact that social practices relating to care and unpaid work in these countries are embedded in traditional cultural contexts which cannot be modified without serious political proposals designed to favour a change in men’s and women’s atti- tudes and values regarding unpaid care work.

II Methodology The methodology used in this article responds to the objectives of the study and involves the interpretation of secondary and aggregate data from a range of statistical sources containing collected data on gender equality and unpaid care work. In the first place, we show data from the Human Development Report 2008 on time use by sex for various countries. In order to give an overview of the current comparative situation of gender equality in developing contexts, we provide two synthetic indices on this issue. These indices, gender related development index (gDI)1 and gender empowerment measure (geM)2, are taken from the above-mentioned report. The comparative interpretation of these data permits an estima- tion of the current state of gender equality both in the private and the public sphere in various national contexts.

This research work also includes different indicators referring to unpaid care work as the main reference for care in six countries. The data come from time use questionnaires in the various reference countries. These data were collected and compiled for the project by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) on Political and Social economy of Care and are contained in the works of Budlender (2008). Specifically, this article summarises and compares the findings from analysis of time use data from argentina, Nicaragua, India, the Republic of Korea, South africa and Tanzania. as the underlying objective of this article is to examine the state of gender equality and care in devel- oping countries, it was considered necessary to select the indicators relating to the concept of care and unpaid work so that the advances in gender equality in developing contexts could be measured from a social rather than from an economic standpoint. This methodological approach represents an innovation, as ‘unpaid care work’ (housework and care of persons in homes in all societies on an unpaid basis) has been somewhat neglected as an object of study, or has been subordinated to the economy by economists and by many social agents. However, and according to Budlender (2008), the quantification of unpaid care work, the way in which it is done and distributed by sex, and the consideration of this work as paid/ unpaid in its various aspects has significant implications for the welfare of individuals and families, as well as for economic growth and the well-being of nations.

The basic objective of this article is to analyse the way in which care is provided by institutions such as the family, the market, the state and the community from a gender perspective, by incorporating, quantifying and highlighting the value of unpaid care work. The analysis presented in this article focuses on the quantitative aspects of unpaid care provided by individuals in households, and is based on a reading and interpretation of data provided by the United Nations Research Institute for

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Social Development (UNRISD) through the project on Political and Social economy of Care, and collected in the work of Budlender (2008). Several surveys were analyzed from the six selected countries, and the diversity of the sources used in each country may diminish the potential for the comparison of the data contributed. This is important to the extent that some of the variation across countries reported in the paper might reflect methodological, rather than ‘real’, differences between the countries.3

1. The description of the indicators con- tained in the tables and which can be found in the report by Budlender (2008) is the following: Basic gender patterns present a set of tables derived from standardized sex-disaggregated indica- tors (gender development index, gender, work and time allocation) compiled for each country. These tables show the variation in male and female levels of engagement in, and the time spent on, employment-related work, unpaid care work and free time as well as the gender development index for each country.

2. Distribution of time spent on care explores the distributions that lie behind the averages that usually form the basis of time use analysis.

3. The tobit estimations report on the econometric analysis conducted in each of the countries to determine the main factors influencing the time spent on unpaid care work and person care across the six countries. gender combined with other factors discusses differences and similarities across countries in the way gender interacts with other factors explored in the tobit estimations in deter- mining how much care is undertaken by different individuals.

4. The care dependency ratio presents country results for a care dependency ratio proposed by the project as an indi- cator of care demand.

5. The monetary value of unpaid care work discusses various approaches to assigning value to unpaid care work, and compares the results with a range of macroeco- nomic indicators for the six countries.

In synthesis, the analytical approach used in this research work is based on the interpreta- tion of secondary data from different studies and statistical sources. The aim is essentially to quantify unpaid care work in order to incorpo- rate the gender perspective into the dominant lines of research on economic growth in devel- oping contexts; these have generally tended to subordinate issues relating to gender equality to employment and public participation of women, thus failing to address the matter of the reproduction of inequality through the uneven distribution of care within the private family sphere.

III Gender, care and social policy in the developing countries gender relations and family relations are excel- lent barometers of the changes happening on a macro-social level in the economic, cultural and political environments. One of the most outstanding examples of these changes is the externalization and objectification of ‘care’ as a form of paid work. although the analysis of these changes in developed countries has been studied as a result of the interaction of State, family and market in the process of democra- tization of citizen’s rights, and therefore in the context of the reduction of gender inequalities, in developing countries its analysis has been very limited.

1 Framing the care and family in the context of social policy The inexorable relation between state and market with regard to the definition of family forms and family roles has led states to develop different social policy strategies in order to neutralize gender inequalities and favour full democratic citizenship of women in several social fields. This meant changing the general

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idea that considered unpaid family tasks as something exclusive to the private sphere of women, dissociated from paid work linked to the public sphere. In general, ‘care work’ has been identified as a devalued job, belonging to the informal economy and without promotion possibilities due to the fact of being mainly carried out by women (england, 2005). as a consequence, studies about ‘care work’, ‘care services’ and ‘care regimes’ have recently integrated the vocabulary of socio-economic literature located at the intersection between analysis of the welfare state, studies on social policy and feminist research (anttonen et al., 2003; Folbre, 2008; Lewis, 2001).

Researchers such as Budlender (2007) have carried out extensive empirical analyses in developing countries with the aim of exam- ining how care is provided and distributed within the family and the household, by the State, the market and the community, and how it interacts with the economy of goods in several developing countries. These kinds of studies have been useful to define subsequent social policies.

Feminist researchers have criticized social policies, meaning that these policies were designed following the logic of the productivist model of globalized economy. The concept of the ‘productivist welfare state’ on which social policies of Western welfare states were based has led to the design of social policies directed to favour gender equality in purely economic terms: raise salaries to the same level, labour integration, financial assistance policies, etc. But there are very few examples of policies directed to reduce cultural gender stereotypes. Therefore, a vast number of these policies have favoured equality between males and females in terms of production and income, but they have not achieved equality in terms of culture and family, which makes the personal and family situation of women even worse. In fact, social policies that have tried to implement the concept of ‘gender mainstreaming’4 in social practices in order to favour inclusion of women into different public spheres have been

developed in the institutional field. However, these approaches have not managed to mitigate gender stereotypes and inequalities regarding the distribution of domestic tasks, mainly in developing countries.

according to Razavi and Hassim (2006: 21), the failure of the application of social policies based on the logic of the ‘productivist welfare state’ in developing countries is fundamentally a consequence of the fact that many of the forms of unpaid work, generally carried out by women in developing countries, remain hidden and therefore unprotected and out of reach for institutionalized social policies. In theory, social policies assume a relevant role, but are also neutral to practical inequalities set in motion by the forces and logic of the market. In fact, available literature about social policies rarely analyzes the relation between family and state in terms of social provisions, and attempts by the state to define and reform the family in order to achieve greater gender equality almost always collide with the productivist logic of the market. Researchers have criticized familistic social policies that identify women as mothers and wives, but they fail to see that apparently neutral social policies are in reality inserted in the logic of the market and produce great costs, and may in many cases leave women who, for cultural or economic reasons have to assume the role of mothers or care-takers completely unprotected, as seen in eastern european countries or in developing countries (Razavi and Hassim, 2006: 31).

In the crucial article entitled ‘Rational Fools or Cultural Dopes’, Kabeer (2000) criticizes the dominant approach in economic analyses that identifies decisions taken within the family as simple rational economic choices related to salaries and income. On the other hand, cultural paradigms and structuralism analyses insist on the fact that economic and cultural contexts decisively affect gender roles, and therefore behaviour. That is the reason why decisions taken within the family cannot be ana- lyzed only by taking into account the model of rational choices in terms of costs and benefits.

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Kabeer underlines the problematic nature of these positions with regard to analyses carried out in the Third World, as for example, the behavior of arab women is partially explained by the internalization of certain cultural norms that define how these societies work.

another problem added to the previous ones in developing countries is that there is a clear democratic deficit that makes it dif- ficult to create and develop advanced social policy programmes. This is especially the case in countries where we find a certain level of religious fundamentalism. In fact, the feminist movement in many of these countries is trying to protect the female collective, basing their allegations on the principles of conservation of traditional gender roles. This contributes to the reproduction of unequal power rela- tions between men and women. Undesired consequences of the actions of these move- ments are the reinforcement of discriminatory practices based on patriarchal laws by the State. This also tends to create political and ideological divisions between female activ- ists, contributing to increase the challenges faced by the feminist movement in Islamic countries. Moghdam (2006b) proves how the Islamic family law is seen as social policy by the Iranian state. This law is linked to a certain level of duality, as on the one hand it protects pregnant women from losing a job or prohibits work at night, but on the other hand it limits economic and social citizenship and reinforces the patriarchal gender contract. These types of social policies are based on the traditional discourse of maternity: social policies protect maternity and the children’s rights, for exam- ple, by punishing marriage of women under 16. Moghdam (2006a and 2006b) highlight how feminist activists in these Islamic countries make the choice of fighting for civil, political and social rights in terms of the international standards of productivist logic, forgetting cultural determinants that reproduce social- ization in patriarchal patterns, which promote maternity and traditional family roles. In fact, inequality in the distribution of domestic tasks

and power relations among family members, supported by the legislation, is a characteristic trait of most Islamic countries.

2 The theoretical framework of welfare regime, care and social policy Thus, the political and ideological context is a key factor in analyzing the social and gender policies created by national states, in devel- oped countries, as well as the Third World. This means widening the framework of action from the public sphere of the economy to a depoliticized and private sphere of the family, which in many cases determines the configu- ration of gender roles in the field of family, as well as the unequal power relations between men and women. The ideological contexts that inspire these policies and serve as models for their development in developing countries are diverse and show uneven results. In this sense, esping-andersen’s typology (1999) is still a fundamental reference in order to con- textualize social and gender policies developed in different welfare states.5 The neoliberal doctrine has usually considered public welfare state policies as a hindrance for the economy and its philosophy is based on the criticism to interventionist policies by the state and the reduction of public policies, transferring the responsibilities regarding care and support of children and older people to the private sphere of families. However, social changes since the 1990s, such as the increase of female labour participation, change the role of the market with regard to the development of actions that up until now were considered the antithesis of the principles of the market, for example, family work. Currently, the market enters spheres of daily life that have been historically considered the antithesis of the principles of the market: the field of family, reproduc- tion and family economy. as highlighted by Polanyi, the consequences of the application of economic market principles face a great challenge, such as the reconstruction of fragile borders between personal and economic life in current globalized economies. Therefore,

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the contradictions of economic globalization constitute a great challenge for the market economy in the sense that markets, in coopera- tion with the state, need to adjust and rebuild the traditional borders between the private family sphere and the logic of a productivist market (Kabeer, 2007).

This diversity of practices becomes appar- ent in the development of parental leaves in the United Kingdom or a system of family services created by the conservative german government or with family solidarity between generations as examples of models of limited welfare states in terms of the development of social and family policies directed to achieve egalitarian gender relations. Social-democratic welfare states, on the other side, have tried to achieve a combination between the develop- ment of advanced policies of conciliation of labour and family and a serious debate in their social programmes on gender issues that affect economy and family. This makes it possible to have high rates of female labour participation, a more egalitarian distribution of domestic tasks and a greater sensibility towards gender equality. Sweden and Norway are some of the most outstanding examples in this regard. In any case, these governments still face some major challenges, like achieving a real change in attitudes towards these policies to make gender equality effective in practice, as well as in theory.

although there have been attempts to readapt the classical typology of two esping- andersen welfare regimes to other parts of the world including eastern europe, Latin america and eastern asia (gough et al., 2004), this has generally involved applying the original model to political and economic contexts which differ substantially from the original typol- ogy designed by esping-andersen, and thus represents an analytical limitation for these studies (esser et al., 2009; Lee and Ku, 2007). In contrast, gough and Wood (2004) contend that to apply this paradigm to the nations and peoples of the global South requires a radical re-conceptualization in order to recognize

the very different realities across the world. according to gough and Wood et al. (2004: 30) ‘the welfare mix or the institutional respon- sibility matrix’ must be extended beyond ‘the welfare state’, financial and other markets, and family/household systems. Some coun- tries have set up the welfare mix experiment in relation to the provision of care services. The public–private mix in argentina and the Republic of Korea are examples (Faur, 2008; Peng, 2009).6 In any case these experiments have been limited, as shown in the UNRISD reports through the work of Budlender (2008) and Razavi (2007b), as care is feminized and often undervalued despite being carried out in the public–private mix.

gough and Wood (2004) posit the exis- tence of two meta-welfare regimes in the mod- ern world alongside the welfare state regime: an informal security regime and an insecurity regime. Informal security regimes describe institutional arrangements where people rely heavily on markets, community and family relationships to meet their security needs (though to greatly varying degrees). These relationships can be hierarchical and asymmet- rical. This often results in problematic inclusion or ‘adverse incorporation’, whereby poorer people acquire some short-term assistance at the expense of longer-term vulnerability and dependence (Wood, 2004). The underlying patron–client relations are then reinforced and can prove extremely resistant to civil society pressures and social policy reforms along wel- fare state lines. Nevertheless, these relations comprise a series of informal ‘rights’ and afford some measure of security. among the numer- ous limitations observed by researchers in this analysis is the fact that it refers to macroso- cial power structures without addressing the gender perspective, and thus fails to analyze the unequal power relations which are repro- duced inside families. However, this model is useful for outlining the diversity of institu- tional contexts in which developing countries approach the definition of social and gender policies.

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The main problem with implementing classical theoretical models relating to social policies is that they are exported to developing countries, where the logic of market is applied in a context of great democratic deficit, which in many cases contributes to increased gender inequalities and limits improvements made possible by feminist movements. Compared case studies carried out by Waylen (2007) in Brazil, South africa, eastern european countries, Chile and Pakistan, among other countries, prove that improvements of social policies through feminist movements depend on the existing levels of democratization in those countries.

Therefore, in view of these considerations, it should be pointed out that the institutional and political context in which the social agents develop their actions is a key factor in the opti- mum implementation of family and gender poli- cies. Democratization became a major theme that dominated comparative politics. But the vast majority of the mainstream literature has been gender-blind with virtually no mention of the roles played by women or how the pro- cesses and outcomes of transitions were gen- dered. This does not mean that in developing countries there have not been feminist social movements which attempt to highlight the value of care as one more requirement of the democratizing processes, although on numer- ous occasions they are silenced by demands of an economic nature. according to Waylen (2007), although women’s movements were not prominent actors in all transitions, there were a significant number of cases where mobilization by women played a key role in the breakdown of authoritarian rule. The explanation for this paradox lies in the fact that the transition to democracy implicitly involves the implementation of the economic logic of the marketplace, which in part renders women’s discourse on care invisible. However, feminist movements demanding the public participation of women as a vital element in encouraging the transition of authoritarian regimes to democratic regimes. The key lies

in the fact that in the transition processes, feminist voices are generally submerged in the economic discourses of the marketplace where economic and participatory factors relating to the labour market and political participation take precedence—with demands for the acknowledgement of unpaid work and matters relating to care being relegated to the second stage of transition. This is the reason that in economic and democratic transition processes, issues of gender and unpaid work tend to become invisible.

Most studies about gender, democratiza- tion, social policies and state suggest that political strategies carried out are fundamen- tally based on economistic analyses, which aim to improve the socio-economic status of women. The problem is that these social poli- cies hardly focus on the role of males and the productive and reproductive field of the family, where gender inequalities reproduce. apart from childcare services and parental leaves regulated by the State, there is little thought put into sexual violence, unequal distribution of power between men and women within the family, unequal distribution of domestic tasks, etc., in the context of social policies. In fact, for social policies to be truly social, they need to be able to connect the personal field to culture, economy and politics; if not, social policies will exclusively be based on economic objectives, which in itself is a contradiction.

Thus, the political context, the actions car- ried out by the State and the social movements created by feminist groups are fundamental factors in increasing awareness of citizens, to promote a change in attitudes and include the gender perspective in social policies devel- oped in developing countries. Therefore, the definition of legal frameworks, the ideological contexts in which gender policies are created, economic policies and the democratization of the state are all very important factors to include values that go beyond economic prin- ciples in social policies that establish a clear dif- ferentiation between the private family sphere,

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where social inequalities are reproduced, and the public sphere of participation.

To sum up, we should emphasize the need to encourage political reflection on the role of feminist movements in relation with the wel- fare regime and the demands for care in devel- oping countries. as Bacchi (2009) and others note, we need a critical reflection on hege- monic feminist approaches to ascertain how they may create borders or silence voices (in Lombardo et al., 2009: 9). In order to achieve this objective we should call into question some of the principles of market logic which have become embedded in the democratizing processes in developing countries, in addition to certain feminist discourses exclusively advo- cating economic demands, thereby rendering invisible the importance of care in achieving gender equality. according to Butler (2009: 9), this requires introducing new terms into reflection and into political actions, in order to rediscover ways of recognizing unpaid work which has so far been invisible in traditional comparative studies on welfare regimes and social policies.

IV Addressing core care issues: Between agency and structure

1 Framing the concept of care: The gendered care In the feminist literature, there are numer- ous definitions of the nature of ‘care’. all of them have one point in common: They define care as a social practice with emotional content that implies relation and interde- pendence. The most common definition of care is that of work that involves caring for others, be it children, the elderly, or those who are ill or disabled. according to Bettio and Plantenga (2008), ‘care’ is the activity of looking after people unable to take care of themselves. It comprises health care, teaching and special needs education, and the residual category of social care, or simply ‘care’, deliv- ered mainly to minors, the elderly and the disabled.

The concept of care has been the focus of much sociological and policy-related research in the last decade. Care is a concept that is used increasingly as a category of analysis in relation to the welfare state. However, a review of this research literature reveals that the concept of ‘care’ is not uniformly defined, nor is the epis- temological status of it clear (graham, 1991; Thomas, 1993; Ungerson, 1990). However, this is a concept which is being increasingly used in family sociology associated to unpaid work, generally undertaken by women in the family home. Caring was initially at any rate conceived of in relation to the unpaid domestic and personal services provided through the social relations of marriage and kinship, focused mainly on unpaid, informal care in the family (Bettio and Plantenga, 2004; Daly and Lewis, 2000; Knijn and Kremer, 1997; Leira, 1993).

Some researchers offer a more detailed definition of ‘care work’, referring to it as a labour process, more than as a relation (market versus household), or as a form of production depending on if it is or not counted by the SNa (International System of National accounts). a more elaborate definition considers it as activities that imply personal and emotional interaction (england & Folbre, 1999; Folbre, 2006).

In all cases, the conceptualization of ‘care’ is linked to precarious and devalued work, generally carried out by women. england et al. (2002: 459) have done some excellent work using a nurturance conceptualization of care to study the devaluation of caring labour in the economy. They define caring labour as ‘work that provides a face-to-face service and develops the capabilities of the recipients’. This definition allows linking the theoretic relational conceptualization of ‘care’ to the empirical operationalization of ‘care’ as work.

This kind of conceptual specification is an important process if we are to link theoreti- cal and empirical work in this field. If we go by these definitions, care work services for dependents (children, older people and people with health problems) are at the same time a

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source of realization and personal limitation for women. Socialization in certain gender roles can limit rights, limit opportunities and the ability to make choices depending on gender, this being an obstacle to gender and welfare equality. In fact, existing literature about this issue has created the term ‘dilemmas of concili- ation of work and family’ (OCDe, 2005). The level and form in which states and markets have focused on and managed ‘care’ through family policies has contributed to the reduction of these dilemmas, or we could also say they have made them worse.

In the case of developing countries, the effects of the provision of family services by women and young females have aggravated the negative effects of gender inequality, as many young women have no other choice but to leave education at a very young age to take care of their brothers and sisters and domestic tasks, as their mothers are working or are sick.

On the other side, family care obligations also create obstacles in terms of possibilities and opportunities for women to participate in the public sphere, therefore making participa- tion in social policies, on a local as well as on a national level, in international decisions and even regarding the right to vote much more difficult. The result is that needs and demands of women stay hidden in most cases, as institu- tions that manage social and family policies are linked to a cultural framework defined by the dominant male ideology, which limits improve- ments in gender equality in the field of family and institutions.

even when care activities are paid, this kind of work is underestimated in develop- ing countries. Care work is highly feminized; qualification requirements and payment are low. This is the result of the application of a gender ideology that puts domestic tasks on the same level as unqualified work, with a presumably natural trend that sees it as a responsibility of women. These adverse work conditions impoverish this kind of work and limit it to informal activities which make access of women to labour rights, decent income, or

fundamental rights like maternity leave or free association more difficult. although there is no statistical information on this issue, indicators regarding domestic work indicate that most domestic tasks carried out by women belong to the informal and black economy, a situation that is even worse in developing countries (Bettio, 2002).

2 The care in the policy and scientific analysis The underestimation and little attention paid to ‘care work’ by governments will, on the short run, lead to a ‘care crisis’ of unforesee- able consequences in many regions of the world. The root of this crisis is the fact that in a globalized context many women and young females do not want to continue carrying out unpaid domestic work (Budlender, 2008), and an increase in female labour participation and higher levels of education of women increase the desire for independence from the male breadwinner. at the same time, family care is carried out mainly by women, which consti- tutes an unsolvable contradiction, where gov- ernments will have to take measures through family and social policies.

In this context of increasing political and social relevance of care, in March 2009 the member states of the United Nations met in New York at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)7 to discuss, among other things, the priority theme of ‘The equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including care-giving in the con- text of HIV/aIDS’. This meeting provided an unprecedented opportunity to focus the international community’s attention on care issues and to generate agreed Conclusions that would lay out a roadmap for care policy, potentially influencing national legislation, policies adopted by UN entities and future international agreements. With regard to the achievements, the final paper of the meeting argues that the frame of care, linked as it was to the equal sharing of responsibility between men and women, proved an exceptionally expansive one. according to Bedford (2010),

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crucial was the successful construction of a linear policy narrative running across a wide range of past international agreements, wherein a new, combined emphasis on care, equal sharing and HIV/aIDS was legitimated in part via skilful creation of a policy story. This narrative, identifying a nascent UN ‘policy and legal framework…on the need to ensure more equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men’ (DaW, 2009: 1) and applying it to care-giving, proved extremely successful. The key objectives of many of those involved in the 53rd session were to raise the profile of care issues and to put them on the international policy agenda, to lay out an extensive social policy roadmap on care that locates respon- sibility firmly with States, to get a positive impact on civil society organizations work- ing around care-giving and also to increase the voices of care-givers in the UN policy debates.

These political processes arising around ‘care’ are creating a debate about the need of increasing the value and externalizing care services in developing countries. This requires an analytical exercise to define the areas that take part in the production of ‘care work’. In this sense, it is interesting to underline that scientific literature has made an effort to define and delimit the concept of ‘care’, as well as its fields of action (gauthier, 1996; Lewis, 2001, 2004; Randall, 2000; Wennemo, 1994).

In this sense, contributions by Razavi have great value and interest. according to Razavi (2007b: 6), care activities include direct care of people, like providing food or taking care of children, as well as domestic tasks, such as cooking, cleaning, fetching water and fuel. groups that need care include little children, dependent elderly, sick and disabled people, and in general adults who do not have the time to carry out care activities like cooking or taking care of their household. This kind of activities can be carried out without getting paid by some member of the family or com- munity. Care can also be paid, when carried out by professionals, such as domestic workers,

nurses, nannies or paid care-takers in the family household.

This definition implies the consideration of care as both paid work and invisible unpaid work within the family. The first step is the acknowledgement of this duality that charac- terizes ‘care’. In order to correctly understand the meaning of care, we have to underline that it is a service within the family household, and therefore gender equality would mean distributing these services between men and women. However, the main problem is that it is a feminized social and cultural activity that men do not acknowledge as their own and in many cases do not feel qualified to carry out. This limits the possibilities of action and choice of women, who face the chal- lenge of taking responsibility or neglecting ‘their duties’. This creates an emotional and material dilemma among women. Usually, the solution is that women take the role of both informal care-takers and workers in the labour market, which results in an over- load of daily activities that limit their spare time and their participation in other public activities.

The analysis of the behaviour of individu- als regarding activities related to care has led researchers to develop different theoretic perspectives in order to approach the mean- ing of care. Sociological research argues that the trends lean in the direction of increasing individualization, whereby people become more independent and autonomous, of family bonds especially, and growing diversity of rela- tionship practices (Beck and Beck-gernsheim, 2002; giddens, 1992). Daly and Scheiwe (2010) conceptualize individualization as a process of continuing separation of an indi- vidual from traditional and familial dependen- cies, whereby the links to status groups lose importance for determining one’s decisions, status and life chances. On the contrary, it has also been claimed that individualization has happened within social bonds, rather than away from them (Duncan et al., 2003; Williams, 2004).

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Thus, on the one hand, we have the individualistic theory of preferences (agency) (Hakim, 2000; Hobson and Fahlén, 2009), and on the other hand, the theory of struc- tural determinants that condition actions of individuals. From the point of view of the individualistic theory of agency, there are three types of women depending on their prefer- ences towards care (Hakim, 2000).8 However, this kind of analysis does not take into account structural determinants such as social class, ethnic group, or symbolic and cultural factors linked to socialization that decisively influence choices taken by individuals.

In this sense, Lewis and giullari (2005: 24) consider that the conceptualization of gender equality in terms of agency, as freely chosen preferences, is not useful when it comes to reinforcing equality between gen- ders in the distribution of domestic tasks at home. In fact, provision of care shows a clear tension between freedom of choice and the cultural determinants that define gender roles. The provision of these services is linked to a human relation that creates emotional interdependences between the care-taker and the one taken care of; therefore it cannot be completely marketized. Unequal power relations within a household and the develop- ment of these capabilities by women are fac- tors that pressurize women more than men towards carrying out these tasks informally and unpaid. Therefore, the ability to make indi- vidual choices by women, in terms of agency, between unpaid domestic work and paid work is limited by the choices of others, as well as it is culturally and ethically determined.

In the case of developing countries, effects of structural and cultural determinants are even greater than in the developed countries due to, on the one hand, the relevance of cul- tural factors that make choices more difficult, and on the other hand, the level of democratic deficit, which make the individualistic perspec- tive of ‘care’ (theory of agency) not really useful in these countries in order to achieve gender equality (Folbre, 1992, 2001).

V The statistical evidence on care and non-care work across countries The acknowledgement by governments regarding gender inequality linked to activities of care requires the realization of thorough empirical studies aimed at domestic work and their distribution among genders. With this in mind, we require a definition of measurement instruments to quantify ‘care’ to allow subse- quent definition of family and social policies that may contribute to reduce existing gender inequality in these countries. The production of unpaid services by women within the family is one of the main indicators to measure gender inequality in developing countries.

The first step towards gender equality consists in defining indicators that measure the time spent with family work in its differ- ent forms, as well as the inequality regarding dedication to unpaid care work sorted by gender. This indicator shows the importance of care and gender equality as an important policy issue (Moser, 2007). The second step is to assign monetary value to unpaid care work. This is important to change the existing per- ception in developing countries that this kind of work is unproductive and does not contribute to the welfare of society. Regarding the sta- tistical analysis, it is not easy to find monetary equivalence of unpaid care work, because this type of work produces intangible goods that are not monetarist (Budlender, 2004). In Spain, Durán (2002) has tried to calculate the contribution of unpaid domestic work to the gDP, although this is a risky statistical exercise due to the nature of this type of work.

Therefore, international studies about unpaid care work have decided to use data provided by surveys about the use of time as the best instrument to measure the meaning of ‘care work’. These surveys ask men and women about the time they spend on different activities during a day or a week, among them those related to unpaid care activities. The problem of these surveys is that it is difficult to obtain accurate and comprehensive informa- tion about unpaid care work, as sometimes

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these activities are counted simultaneously to other types of activities, as for example, taking care of children or preparing food (Budlender, 2007:18; Ironmonger, 2003). Reports car- ried out by international institutions, for example, United Nations entity for gender equality and the empowerment of Women (UNWOMeN), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have underlined the need of having comparable international data that allows analyzing the different dimensions of care and informal economy in developing coun- tries. This comparative data about gender pro- vides the needed information to develop solid arguments to favour a distribution of resources that will get rid of gender disparities and offer information to support the development of social and family policies that also include the gender perspective (Daly, 2008; Demetriades et al., 2007: 5).

although these types of survey show many limitations as an instrument to measure ‘care’ in developing countries, they have proven useful to carry out subsequent qualitative analyses to assess the level of implication of state, families and market in the provision of care in developed countries, as well as in developing countries (Budlender, 2007), because they show trends relevant to this type of analysis. This can be seen in the data shown below. Overall it is a fact proven by all surveys that women still spend more hours doing domestic work (unpaid care work) than men in all societies (Budlender, 2007; United Nations Development Programme, 2007; United Nations Division for the advancement of Women, 2008a, 2008b; United Nations Millennium Project, 2005). It is paradoxical to see how, despite the increase of labour participation of women, gender inequalities in terms of unpaid care work still exist in almost all regions of the world (elson, 1999, 2005; Kabeer, 2007, 2008; Molyneux, 2007; Pearson, 2007). although there is certain diversity in gender roles and in the way family tasks are distributed as consequence of the different institutional contexts regarding the

promotion of gender equality, truth is that unequal distribution of domestic work between genders is something usual in all regions, despite the changes in attitudes and expecta- tions towards shared distribution of care work and the externalization of this kind of services.

These trends are shown in Table 1, from the Human Development Report 2007/2008 (UNDP, 2007). On the one side, we can see the total amount of time spent by males and females between 20 and 74 years of age on different activities, among them unpaid care work; and on the other side, it also includes the indicator referring to the average time employed by males and females on market activities and unpaid activities. In all reference countries, women spend more time than men with domestic tasks and childcare, and they have less spare time than men. The table also proves that women spend more time in work than men in mostly all countries. This means an increased workload for women. Therefore, the gap between time spent by women and time spent by men is especially significant in all countries.

Usually, unequal distribution of domestic work between genders is linked to gender inequality. Indicators developed to analyze the situation underline the fact that gender inequality is higher where unequal distribution of domestic work is greater (see Table 2).

There are not many studies about the use of time in developing countries that include quantitative aspects of unpaid care work car- ried out by people at their homes. In this sense, it is interesting to highlight the work carried out by Budlender (2008), who compares quanti- tative data on the use of time in argentina, Nicaragua, India, the Republic of Korea, South africa and Tanzania in the framework of a project funded by the United Nations Research Institute of Social Development (UNRISD). In the following paragraphs we will analyze some data provided by this study.

Table 3 shows compared indicators that measure time in hours spent on unpaid care work and time used on paid work by men and

T a

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20 08

).

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Progress in Development Studies 12, 4 (2012) pp. 275–300

Table 2 gender-related development index Gender-related Development Index (GDI) Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM)

Rank Value Rank Value

Sweden 5 0.95 2 0.90

France 7 0.95 18 0.71

Spain 12 0.94 12 0.79

United States 16 0.93 15 0.76

R. of Korea 26 0.91 64 0.51

Mexico 51 0.82 46 0.58

Nicaragua 99 0.69

South africa 107 0.66

India 113 0.60

Benin 145 0.42

Source: Human Development Report (2007/08), UNDP (2007). Notes: The gDI adjust the average achievement to reflect the inequalities between men and women in the following dimensions: (a) a long and healthy life as measured by life expectancy at birth, (b) knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio, (c) a decent standard of living, as measured by estimated earned income (PPPU$).

The geM measures the gap between men and women along three equally weighted dimensions of empowerment:   • Political participation and decision-making (measured by women’s and men’s share of parliamentary seats).   • economic participation and decision-making (measured by women’s and men’s share of professional and technical

jobs, and share of administrative and managerial jobs).

Table 3 Composition of hours spent on SNa and UCW by sex (percentage of total hours spent on work) SNA UCW

Male Female Male Female

argentina 35 23 9 32

India 45 17 4 34

R. of Korea 43 24 6 27

Nicaragua 36 15 10 39

South africa 30 20 13 37

Tanzania 34 28 9 29

Source: Budlender (2008). Notes: SNa: Time used on paid work according to System of National accounts Work. UCW: Time used on unpaid care work.

being employed affects the time dedicated to unpaid care work. There are clear differences between men and women in both indica- tors. Regarding the indicator of time used on domestic work (unpaid care work), there are great differences between genders, the women being those who devote more time to this activity. In India and Korea differences are the greatest in terms of paid work. In India, this is fundamentally due to the patriarchal structure and the long labour days of men. In Nicaragua and South africa, low figures of women regarding paid work is most probably a consequence of high unemployment rates (Budlender, 2008).

On the contrary, in Tanzania and argentina differences are lower between men and women, although for very different reasons. In argentina it is, among other reasons, due to the fact that women have massively accessed the labour market without spending less time on domestic tasks, as we can see in the table

women according to the SNa (International System of National accounts). These two indicators are used because, as has been documented in numerous studies, the fact of

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differences between men and women in terms of time spent on unpaid work are very high in the reference countries. In the Republic of Korea, the trend could be a consequence of the commercialization of care services. estimates carried out in previous works with regard to developing countries show similar results (UNDP, 1995: 91).

Table 4 shows estimates using the tobit method to analyze the incidence of different factors described in the table on unpaid care work.9 Therefore, the data shows to what extent the included factors have a positive or negative influence, that is, if they tend to increase or decrease the time spent on unpaid care work.

The results obtained are pretty clarifying for all countries. as expected, being a man

has significant effects on the probability of spending less time on unpaid care work. This is the most important factor in explaining the probability of spending less time on unpaid care work in all reference countries, except in argentina. In this last country, the factor ‘male’ is the fourth factor with more influ- ence, after the factors: ‘presence of children in the family household’, ‘male as the main breadwinner’, and ‘being employed’. In all reference countries, the presence of children in the family household tends to increase the probability of spending more time on unpaid care work. Links between the variable age and unpaid care work vary depending on the range of age covered by the estimates. In the case of the variable ‘income’, it is a proven fact in all reference countries that as income increases,

Table 4 Summary of results of tobit estimations on unpaid care work Argentina India Nicaragua Republic of Korea South Africa Tanzania

Male N N N N N N

employed N N N N P

age P P NS P P P

age squared N N N N N N

Child in household P P P P P P

education N P P N

Married P P P P P

Household income/ expenditure

N P NS NS N

Personal income NS

Caste/race NS NS

Rural N NS

Household structure Y NS

Family structure Y

Household size P

Head of household P

Spouse of head P

Source: Budlender (2008). Notes: P: positive influence on amount of unpaid care work. N: negative influence on amount of unpaid care work. Y: significant influence but the direction of the influence or the nature of the factor are too complicated for a simple plus o minus. NS: not significant. Blank cell: factor not incluided in the tobit estimation.

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time spent on unpaid care work decreases. This could be explained as a consequence of the fact that more income allows buying these kinds of services on the market, while in poorer households, unpaid care work is fundamentally carried out by women.

Being employed tends to decrease the time spent on unpaid care work except in Tanzania, where employed people spend more time on these kinds of activities than in other countries. On the other hand, in most countries, being married is also linked to more time spent on unpaid care work (Razavi et al., 2007a; Kabeer, 2000; england and Folbre, 2003).

according to the analyses carried out by gauthier et al. (2004: 199) and Moreno Mínguez (2009) in european countries, partici- pation in domestic tasks tends to decrease as the level of education increases. In the analysis presented in this article regarding developed countries, education has differential incidence depending on the country, as the variables used to measure the level of education change significantly from country to country, which makes comparisons much more complicated. For example, in South africa, time spent on unpaid care work probably increases as the level of education increases. In the Republic of Korea, those with higher levels of education have to spend less time on unpaid care work, while in Tanzania this trend is exactly the opposite, as people without education spend less time on unpaid care work than people with primary education. In India, the relation to education is statistically not significant.

Finally, regarding the analysis of the regres- sion presented in Table 4, it is interesting to note that there are a series of factors such as race or social status that affect time spent on domestic tasks only in certain countries. In the case of South africa, white people tend to spend less time on unpaid care work than black people, and in India people from higher castes tend to spend less time in those activities than people from lower castes.

With regard to the indicator ‘care depen- dency ratio’ (ratio of people who need care and

assistance as dependent people) in the Figure 1, we can see that Nicaragua is the country with the highest ratio, and this country is also the one with the highest fertility rate. In fact, we can see that there is a positive relation between care dependency and fertility in the chosen countries. However, these data are not completely comparable, as for example, care dependency is very similar in Nicaragua and Tanzania, but the total fertility rate between 2000 and 2005 was 3.0 in Nicaragua and 5.7 in Tanzania (United Nations Development Programme, 2007: 243). Indirectly, this infor- mation tells us that in Tanzania HIV/aIDS increases the need of care and in Nicaragua it is a consequence of the progressive ageing of the population.

In Figure 1 we can see great differences between countries ranging from a 0.18 rate in the Republic of Korea, to a 0.61 rate in Nicaragua. These differences can be explained by the different ways of understanding ‘care’ provided by families (england and Folbre, 2003; esplen, 2009; Folbre, 2001). While in the Republic of Korea the community takes care of dependent people, in Nicaragua or Tanzania only one person is responsible for more than half of the care needed by some other person.

Table 5 shows a comparative analysis of the contribution of unpaid care work and assistance for dependent people to the gDP in different reference countries. In argentina, estimates say the contribution of unpaid care wor k to the gDP is around 7 per cent (using the domestic worker wage in argentina) and in India it is 27 per cent. The value of unpaid care work is estimated to be between 10 per cent (using generalist wage in argentina) and 63 per cent, and 30 per cent (using the employee wage in India and South africa, respectively) of gDP. according to Palriwala and Neetha (2009: 39), in India there is little or no recogni- tion of various dimensions of care-giving and of its quantitative or qualitative time/labour demands.

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0.22

0.39

0.18

0 Argentina India Rep. of Korea Nicaragua South Africa Tanzania

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.36

0.61 0.6

Figure 1 Care dependency ratio (percentage of persons needing care per care giver) Source: Budlender (2008).

Data are especially significant when we refer to care of dependent people (see Table 6). For care of dependent persons, the range is between 1 per cent (using the domestic worker wage in South africa) and 14 per cent (using employee wages in India). according to Budlender (2008: 38), ‘the high measures for India and Tanzania could be regarded as misleading to the extent that many workers doing gDP/SNa work in these countries are unpaid, and gDP is thus probably lower than it would otherwise be’. The gDP comparisons

provide support for the argument that the amount of unpaid care work done and its value are too large to be ignored in economic decision making. This trend is also common in most Western countries, but is particularly significant in developing countries. The com- parison of these data is therefore especially important in order to highlight the value of the economic contribution of unpaid care work to the gDP if it were to be included in the national accounts. Therefore, these results are of great significance to assess the importance of public

Table 5 Value of unpaid care work as a percentage of gDP All Earners All Employees Generalist Domestic work

argentina 12 12 10 7

India 63 39 27

R. of Korea 29 29 18 19

Nicaragua 54 31

South africa 28 30 15 11

Tanzania 63 35

Source: Budlender (2008).

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policies to guarantee the value and externaliza- tion of these services, in most cases provided invisibly by women.

Table 7 shows substantial variations of the percentage for each of the two values, both between and within countries using different measures. The variation of the value within the country is particularly high in the cases of India and South africa. In both these coun- tries, the highest value for unpaid care work is more than twice as high as the lowest value. One reason for this is the very low wages paid to domestic workers in both these countries when compared to wages of other employees. In the Republic of Korea, in contrast, the wage of domestic workers is higher than the general average. Nevertheless, across all countries domestic workers get lower wages. This is par- tially a reflection of the dominance of females in care-related occupations and the relatively low wages paid for these types of work.

Table 7 shows the value of unpaid care work as a percentage of paid work in the econ- omy. The case of the Republic of Korea is to be highlighted, as the value of unpaid care work is equivalent to 4.40 per cent of the value of paid care work. In this sense, we should underline that for these estimates about paid work in Korea, teachers and health care professionals have been excluded, although they represent a high percentage of the value of paid work in other countries. On the opposite, South africa shows lower values, and this could be a consequence of including workers from the fields of education and health to measure paid work. In fact, in the case of South africa, the value of unpaid care work in the economy is higher than the value of paid care work. In any case, we can see the importance of unpaid care work in the economy in relation to paid work in all reference countries, which indicates that the externalization of this type of unpaid work

Table 6 Value of care of persons as percentage of gDP All Earners All Employees Generalist Domestic Work

argentina 3 3 3 2

India 14 8 6

Republic of Korea 8 7 5 5

Nicaragua 10 6

South africa 3 4 2 1

Tanzania 10 5

Source: Budlender (2008).

Table 7 Value of unpaid care work as a percentage of paid care work in the economy All Earners All Employees Generalist Domestic Work

argentina 788 782 644 480

India 1111 680 483

Republic of Korea 4.407 4.359 2.703 2.836

Nicaragua

South africa 297 321 155 115

Tanzania 1.066 596

Source: Budlender (2008).

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would be a positive incentive for the economies of these developing countries.

VI The need for family policy in developing countries The previously presented data shows the need for developing social and family policies that contribute to favour gender equality, redistribution of reproduction costs, as well as acknowledge and externalize ‘care’ in devel- oping countries, as it is a fundamental priority to favour economic and social development in these countries. already in 1992, Fabre highlighted that

the agenda points beyond concerns with sex discrimination in the marketplace to the related issues of equitable distribution of the costs of child rearing. The political empowerment of women could contribute to major reforms in both family law and social welfare policy.

Several reports have highlighted the need of moving towards a world where individuals and society acknowledge the importance of different forms of ‘care’, but without stigma- tizing care work as an activity only carried out by women under the stereotype that it is them who are best suited to carry it out (esplen, 2009; Moghdam and Karshenas, 2006; Razavi, 2007a). The realization of this objective requires facing the challenge of de-feminizing ‘care’. This is only achievable favouring a change in values and attitudes through education, chang- ing the conditions in which unpaid care work is carried out and the value society attributes to this kind of work. In order to do this we will need, on the one hand, the objectification of family policies towards acknowledgement and externalization of unpaid care work, as a possible form of social policy, and on the other hand, family policies that favour gender equality in the field of family, market and the different institutional contexts where decisions are taken (Kabeer, 2008).

The main existing problem in develop- ing countries is the lack of attention paid by governments to child care services as an

instrument to favour empowerment of women and gender equality (ahmed and Bould, 2004). International institutions underline the importance of family policies to achieve gender equality and participation of women in differ- ent public spheres, but paradoxically the report of the UN Millennium Project Task Force on education gender equality (2005) prepared by a group of 27 leading experts devotes only one page out of 257 pages (2005: 97) to the issue of childcare (Bould, 2006). Only for the last years, studies related to care in developing countries have been carried out.

In a globalized context, family policies become a key instrument in developing coun- tries to promote empowerment of women, considering them in their role as mothers and workers. One of the substantial contradictions of globalization refers to the fact that on the one side women in these countries demand more participation in society as workers, and at the same time, demand of care also increases. Therefore, the lack of family policies that cre- ate an adequate infrastructure for childcare and empowerment of gender equality may as well lead to a global care crisis of unknown proportions. according to Bould (2006), the first step in order to implement coherent fam- ily policies requires the acknowledgement of the dual role of women both as workers and as care-takers in these countries, as it has been demonstrated by the data collected in this study. It is impossible to change cultural gender conditions without defining childcare family policies that favour integration of women as mothers and care-takers into the public sphere through work, as a first step to increase participation of men in the private family sphere.

There is criticism towards these theses, for example, family policies based on providing assistance to mothers as workers and care- takers contribute to reproduce traditional distributions of family gender roles. However, studies carried out have shown that the strat- egies in developing countries aim to favour the access of women to the labour market,

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therefore promoting conciliation of work and family. according to giannelli and Francavilla (2007: 27), the results show that the greatest positive impact of vocational training in rural India is to be found in permanent paid work, as opposed to occasional and unpaid work. If we believe that women’s empowerment is closely related to permanent paid jobs, the contribution of vocational training pro- grammes has to be regarded as a successful, albeit indirect, intervention in this direction. as to public income support and employment policies, they must be carefully studied and linked to intra-household dynamics, in order to avoid disincentive effects on female participa- tion that could counterbalance the positive effects of specific measures directed to female employment.

Numerous reports carried out in developed countries highlight the relevance of family policies as an instrument to promote gender equality favouring labour access of women who also take care of family tasks, participa- tion in different public spheres and egalitarian distribution of domestic tasks (Bedford, 2010; Budlender, 2007; Molyneux, 2007; Razavi, 2007b). Specifically in recent reports (CSW, 2006, 2009; DaW, 2009), family policies are shown to be a powerful instrument for promot- ing gender equality in these countries. In fact, these reports have been used as evidence for an emerging global norm of care and family policies. More specifically, the agreements forged by member states at the 53rd session of CSW offer an unprecedented opportunity to harmonize global care policy around key principles of state responsibility for care, and the importance of including care-givers’ voices in care debates.

Developed countries, those countries with a favourable legislation and more developed family policies in terms of conciliation of work and family, have achieved higher levels of equality regarding gender roles. This allows adapting family policies to changing family trends with the aim of adapting policies to the needs of the citizens (european Commission,

2009). However, in developing countries the objective is rather to force a change in the social policies in order to create a change in the attitudes and values regarding family work and paid work, as social practices related to care in these countries are embedded in traditional cultural contexts that are difficult to modify without policy initiatives that favour a change among the collective awareness.

Therefore, social and family policies need to be developed in these countries in the framework of a dual perspective: on the one hand, facilitating the externalization of fam- ily services through its provision by state and market, in order to promote labour insertion of women, and on the other hand, promot- ing educational policies that remove cultural barriers that explain unequal distribution of domestic tasks and traditional gender roles. In this regard, it is interesting to highlight that the acknowledgement of economic activities carried out by women in developing countries is much more difficult due to cultural expecta- tions of men and women, as women are not even expected to work under the same condi- tions as men (Rogers, 1980: 30).

To summarise this section, I would like to highlight the need for governments to ratify the acknowledgement of family and gender poli- cies in developing countries as a fundamental instrument for promoting gender equality by recognizing the value of unpaid care work. It is priority to design, implement and promote family-friendly policies and services, including affordable, accessible and quality care services for children and other dependants, parental and other leave schemes, and campaigns to sensitize public opinion on equal sharing of employment and family responsibilities between women and men.

VII Conclusions The literature on the political and social econ- omy of care has been enriched by conceptual and empirical analyses from diverse disciplinary perspectives. This article pays particular atten- tion to two strands of this literature, namely

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feminist economics, and gender and social policy in the developing countries. In fact, research on care issues in developing countries could usefully combine several elements elabo- rated in these different bodies of literature. One is the need for a solid empirical foundation that can capture the extent of care work, both paid and unpaid, across different institutions. This topic requires particular attention, as the way in which a society approaches care- related issues has important consequences for gender equality, and can either contribute to increasing the capacities and options of women and men, or else perpetrate the confinement of women to traditional functions relating to femininity and motherhood. at the same time, the criteria with which we respond to care are indissolubly linked to other structures of inequality, in particular to concepts of race and social class. Therefore the way in which care is approached is fundamental to citizens’ well- being and to ensuring the optimization of the model of economic development. accordingly, this article has highlighted crucial elements to improve gender equality in developing coun- tries. On the one hand, we have analyzed the unequal distribution of unpaid care work among genders, the importance of care work and the need to develop family policies to externalize care services in order to favour conciliation of work and family, and therefore integration of women into the labour market and the public sphere.

The article focuses on valuing unpaid care work and giving importance to the acknowl- edgement of this kind of work as paid work, for both the economy and the democratization of these countries, in terms of the development of citizen rights for women. The acknowledge- ment of unpaid care work requires the develop- ment of family policies that favour conciliation of work and family for working mothers and the promotion of free or semi-free high-quality care-services by the state and the market. Without access to basic childcare services the possibilities of achieving empowerment of women are very low due to family obligations

and cultural barriers that reproduce the male breadwinner model, where women assume their condition as a cultural, in many cases even religious, mandate.

In summary, this study provided evidence for that the main challenge faced by developing countries in this discussion area is to separate activities that link care from the exclusive responsibility of females, who freely provide them within the families. additionally, results indicated that much of what is known about the patriarchal ideology, based on unequal gender relations, impregnates many of the political strategies used in developing coun- tries. Therefore, these practices limit general acknowledgement by the citizens of the need of developing family policies that favour freedom of choice of males and females in a context of equality, and the valuation of care through externalization of family services, that way favouring a gradual change in attitudes within the families. Thus, the essential requi- site for egalitarian family and gender policies is the creation of an adequate context, getting rid of cultural, economic and institutional barriers to allow for the possibility of making choices in a context of equality. The development of family, education, labour and economic policies is crucial in developing countries, in order to achieve gender equality and democratization of family relations and citizen rights, linked to the participation of all members of society in the public sphere.

Acknowledgements The author is grateful to enrique Crespo for helpful research assistance as well as to the editor and referees.

Notes 1. gDI adjusts the average achievement to reflect the

inequalities between men and women in the following dimensions: (a) a long and healthy life as measured by life expectancy at birth; (b) knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio; (c) a decent standard of living, as measured by estimated earned income (PPPU$).

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2. The geM measures the gap between men and women along three equally weighted dimensions of empowerment: political participation and decision- making (measured by women’s and men’s share of parliamentary seats); economic participation and decision-making (measured by women’s and men’s share of professional and technical jobs); and share of administrative and managerial jobs.

3. according to Budlender (2008) all surveys employed random sampling methodologies designed to obtain samples that were representative of the relevant populations. In most cases, households were sampled and all individuals above a certain age in these households were chosen. In argentina and South africa, households were selected randomly, with one or two respondents chosen, also on a random basis, in each of these households.

4. according to european Commission (2004), ‘gender mainstreaming’ means to make gender equality part of this dominant (mainstream) trend in society so that women and men benefit equally. It means looking at every step of policy – design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation – with the aim of promoting equality between women and men.

5. esping andersen, in The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1990), analyzes how three institutions – labour markets, states and households – shape economic and social outcomes across a range of high- income countries, in which the world is split in three types of welfare State: the conservative corporatist, the liberal, and the social democratic welfare regime. These are clustered along three lines: welfare regime, the configuration of state, market and family (which in its empirical part has been reduced to state-market relations); stratification, which by and large equals class inequality (rather than age, ethnicity or gender); and social rights, which was translated into the concept of de-commodification, meaning independence from the (labour) market. De-familialization, meaning ‘policies that lessen individuals’ reliance on the family, maximising individuals’ command of economic resources independently of familial or conjugal reciprocities’ (esping-andersen, 1999: 44).

6. Class and regional differences in access to preschool education for five-year-olds have been reduced substantially in argentina by making enrolment mandatory for this age group. However, enrolment rates for children from lower-income households remain only a fraction of those for children from higher-income households in the younger age groups, where public provision is limited and the market plays a dominant role. Since low-income families cannot afford private childcare, they face long waiting lists for public crèches, rely on less professionalized community services or on unpaid care by family members. In the Republic of Korea – where the state partially

finances and regulates, but does not necessarily deliver, childcare services – the private–public mix does not seem to reinforce social inequalities in the same way. government subsidies are on a sliding scale based on parents’ income and paid directly to the institution where the child is enrolled. Hence, the same institution may be frequented by children from low- and high-income strata, with the participation of those from lower-income families subsidized by the state.

7. The CSW was established in 1946, and is the United Nations’ principal norm-setting and policy-making body on issues of gender equality and the advancement of women. See www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/ index.html#about, last accessed on 29 June 2009. For the history of the CSW, see CSW (2006), gaer (2009).

8. Classification of women’s work-lifestyle preferences in the twenty-first century according to Hakim (2000):

Home-centred: Family life and children are the main priorities. Prefer no work. Number of children is affected by goverment social policy. Not responsive to employment policy.

Adaptative: This group is most diverse and includes women who want to combine work and family, plus drifters and unplanned careers. Want to work, but not totally committed to work career. This group is very responsive to government social policy and employment policy.

Work-centred: Childless women are concen- trated in this group. Main priority in life is employment. Committed to work or equivalent activities. Responsive to economic opportunity. Not responsive to social/family policies.

9. For more information about the application of this method, see methodological epigraph.

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