Death of Community Living

As a child, I would be more often found in the house of some neighbour than my own home. My parents would have to drag back a crying me at dinner time. Those were days where children would be in anyone’s home, eating, playing and being monitored by the elders around. Parents did not worry about the safety of the child, knowing fully well that the children were being monitored by the entire community. In fact, if we were to do something wrong, neighbours would be the first to pull us up before letting our parents know. And there was no offence felt or taken by a neighbour firing us or informing on us to our parents. It was the done thing. In our childhood, our neighbourhood was our day care centre. Watching over the kids of the neighbourhood was a task of the seniors (grandparents) and they did it with a smile on their face.

Circa, 2023. I would never leave my child in the hands of any neighbour. Even if the child had to go to play with her friend, I would call the parent and ask if it is ok to send her. We call it a ‘play date.’ Dare the friend’s parent say a harsh word to my baby, all hell would break loose. If the father of the friend was alone at home, no girl child will be sent alone to play at their house. The child is sent with a list of instructions and often with a nanny to monitor movements.

In a world where community living has lost its significance and meaning, how do we build a protective cover around our children? How do mothers step out of their homes for a living? Given that we have moved to living a life of nuclear families, most mothers are forced to take breaks in their careers to look after the child. Often, the break begins post maternity for a couple of years and then, care responsibilities grow by the day forcing the mother to take a permanent break. This causes huge economic loss not just to the family but the economy as a whole. Mothers are seen as the primary care givers and often, since she tends to be the one earning lesser, has to sacrifice her career for care giving. Estimates suggest that unpaid care work could account for up to 50% of GDP in high income countries and up to 80% of GDP in low income countries. If we factor this work into the equation, India’s GDP in 2016 would have been around $3.7 trillion (as compared to the World Bank’s figure of $2.3 trillion).*

We like to think that the unpaid work women do is just about an individual woman caring for her family. But it isn’t. Women’s unpaid work is work that society depends on and it is work from which society as a whole benefits. Gender inequalities in unpaid care work are observed all around the world, even if there are regional variations. Overall, women spend more time on unpaid care activities than men representing on average two to ten times that of men. The struggle for women to reconcile care responsibilities with paid employment can lead to “occupational downgrading”, where women choose employment below their skills level and accept poorer conditions. **

Lifting the constraints on women’s time implies reducing the burden borne by women. Care should not be considered only as a burden and this central activity for well-being should be redistributed between men and women, as well as between the family and the State - States’ failure to provide, regulate and fund formal care services increases the burden for communities, families and especially women.

Governments need to seriously consider the social infrastructure being provided to ensure women can get back to work. Rather than introduction of parental leave (which is also very critical), investing in social infrastructure would have better long term impact. And social infrastructure does not mean roads, electricity, water; it needs to include public services necessary for the functioning of a modern society, like child and elder care. Making it mandatory by law for corporates to provide day care services is not enough. We need city planners and gated communities to get involved, social service organisations to get involved, hospices to be involved, men to be more actively involved with care giving – the entire community needs to join hands to build a safe space for children and elders needing care.

* ?https://www.oecd.org/development-gender/Unpaid_care_work.pdf

** Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez