Unpaid labour is not considered ‘real work’ and is often devalued by the men, society
‘Work’ was defined by Spanish economist Lourdes Beneria in 1999 as a paid economic activity linked to the market. Both paid and unpaid work, however, are constituents of our economic life. This leads to an ecosystem where unpaid and care work, performed for long hours, becomes invisible.
This unpaid work not only provides services to household members, but to the community. This strengthens “the social fabric, sense of community, civic responsibility and norms that maintain trust, goodwill and social order”, according to British economist Susan Himmelweit.
This makes unpaid work crucial for the development of the economy and society. Women perform 75 per cent of the world’s unpaid care work, and unfortunately it is not accounted for in a nation’s gross domestic product.
The largest source of women’s unpaid labour is domestic work. These include household chores like grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning as well as caregiving to the children, elderly and infirm.
This unpaid labour is one of the most important sources of comfort and support in our daily lives. In the absence of this, survival would be a challenge for both individuals and society as every economy is dependent on unpaid labour and care services.
Impact of time poverty
This share of labour has a cost not only in terms of the unrecognised monetary value but also time poverty. Time poverty is defined as “not having enough time” to pursue interests beyond unpaid domestic / care work.
Unpaid labour is not considered ‘real work’ and is often devalued by the men and society, who directly benefit from it.
The situation leads to emotional strain and combined with the time poverty, the costs often outweigh the benefits. Often, women do not find enough time or motivation to participate in activities outside the household.
Time poverty has a direct bearing on the ability of women to contribute to or participate in the labour market and / or public or political life.
Female labour force participation rate in 2020 declined compared to 2019 in 58 of the 66 countries surveyed by the United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
There are socio-political and cultural dynamics at play time poverty also has a big influence on this equation.
From 2019-2020; Source: Author’s compilation from UN DESA data, 2020.
Time poverty is also responsible for insufficient political participation of women globally.
Women in politics lead to tangible gains in public life through gender inclusiveness and higher responsiveness to citizen services. It, thus, has a positive influence on policy-making. This is where time banking comes forward as a social innovation for increased empowerment of women.
Time banking
Traditionally, household chores are expected to be performed by women. Women in general are more time poor than men. Empowerment of women is limited by time poverty. In this context we introduce the concept of time banking.
Time banking can be viewed as an opportunity cost of an unpaid activity in terms of the time sacrificed. In time banks, one hour equals one time credit, regardless of the service being performed or the level of each person’s skill or gender.
The time banks are time-sharing cooperative among women, with people helping each other meet their day-to-day needs and address challenges in their community. For each hour of a service exchanged, the service provider receives one, time credit and the beneficiary pays one, time credit.
The time bank networks tap into unused resources of people in the community to fill unmet needs of each other.
Time-banking can benefit women, their families and their communities by alleviating time poverty through the system of exchange services through time credits. The system has the potential to improve the livelihoods of women and their families, thereby increasing overall economic activities.
Challenges and silver lining
American legal reformer Edgar Cahn, the proponent of time banking, noted that there were time banks operating in more than 30 countries in the Americas, Africa and Europe as well as in Russia and China.
Most case studies showed that time banks have functioned most as community-building tools, economic drivers or within elder care. They can also be utilised to prioritise women’s political participation.
This has a direct impact on women empowerment and entails benefits to individual women, their families and communities. Time bank networks can be utilised for increasing political participation of women in the following ways:
Across the world, there are examples in our everyday life of intra- and inter-family examples of informal time-sharing. However, for tangible results on a community or economy scale, the concept needs scaling up and formalisation.
In informal arrangements, trust, repeated interactions and network characteristics work to achieve such cooperation. The formalisation and scaling up of the same poses as a challenge.
But there is hope. The most relevant case study on time banks is that of Senegal, where time banking was made a formal system and integrated into a vocational training centre for women. It allowed women to earn time credits by working at the centre or caring for members’ children and exchange them for classes and workshops.
To make time banks a formal set up, GRADES introduced a simple framework. Each member of the community identified needs that he or she can address.
The community then translated the service performed by the individual into time credits which could be exchanged for hours beyond unpaid work. That could be in a computer-training centre or other GRADES resources.
Around 52,000 women received business skills and entrepreneurial training in the five years after banking was incorporated into the centre. This increased their monthly incomes to $100-$100 from $20, on an average.
Nearly 50,000 individuals also completed educational programs on health, nutrition, literacy and other areas. The monthly income of 1,250 graduates of a three-year course in tailoring increased on an average from $20 per month to $100-$200 per month.
The time banking program impacted the lives of individuals and communities by generating employment.
Time banking, if made a formal arrangement, has the potential of community building, civic inclusiveness and increasing economic activity.
Above all, it has the potential to act as the catalyst to women empowerment by formally recognising the economic value of unpaid labour and tapping the same across communities.
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