Mapping the literature on women’s unpaid work : A bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer

Unpaid care work, a term used to refer to household work including responsibilities of child rearing and caring for sick or old members of the family, is a major factor influencing woman’s labor market participation. Responsibilities of unpaid care work puts working women in physical and emotional stress and ‘time poverty’ owing to its disproportionate distribution within the household. It is a factor that adversely affects not only the time and quality of a woman’s paid work participation, but has repercussions on her health and overall enjoyment of life. Though, recent times have seen a slight increase in the women participation in paid labor worldwide, it has not resulted in a proportionate reduction in her unpaid work or its equitable distribution within the family. Thus, most working women end up working ‘double-shift’ every day. Any deliberation on working woman’s work life balance therefore boils down to equitable and proportionate distribution of unpaid care work. International Labour Organization (ILO) has championed a Tripple ‘R’ approach of ‘recognizing, reducing and redistributing’ unpaid care work to realize gender parity. In this context the paper analyses the possible strategies that, may be put in place at different levels-individual, familial, societal and state- to effectively advance the cause of work-life balance of women.

Today the concept of ‘time poverty’ is gaining much attention. Since time is a limited factor, when more of it is devoted to paid and unpaid work, less time is available for leisure, which results in high time poverty. Time is often more precious than money and is regarded as a natural and universal concept. A woman’s position in the society and family as well as her time allocation is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. Therefore a woman’s paid works as well as her unpaid domestic work especially care work are equally significant as it produces significant influence upon her time allocation. Across globe, women and girls does the vast majority of care giving work in the home which creates disproportional responsibilities finally result in time poverty. This paper mainly focuses on the care time (child care, elderly care and personal care time) devoted by working women across different occupations

The present World Survey on the Role of Women in Development has contained an examination of the important links between gender equality, income poverty and time poverty. The responsibility for unpaid care and domestic work, which falls disproportionately on the shoulders of women and girls, sustains people and households on a day-to-day basis and across generations. Unpaid care work is the foundation upon which all other economic activities rest. Rooted in discriminatory social norms and gender stereotypes, women’s disproportionate responsibility for unpaid care and domestic work has significant consequences for both women and their families and is deeply connected to the high rate of poverty among women. The intersection of income poverty and time poverty among women is starkly evident in the fact that they are at greatest risk of poverty at the stage in their life course during which they form a family and raise children. At that stage, families face the increased expenses associated with having children, and the women in the family also have less time available for paid work. Women face a stark choice between forgoing income-generating opportunities or accepting insecure forms of employment, while struggling to manage their heavy and intense burdens of unpaid care and domestic work responsibilities.

BackgroundDespite its growing interest, time poverty is a neglected issue in public health analysis and policies. The objectives of this study were: (1) to analyse gender differences in paid, unpaid...

Individuals with heavy paid and unpaid work burdens may experience time deprivations that restrict their well-being and put them at risk of becoming or remaining income poor. Because unpaid work outside of the market is not captured in most large survey-based datasets, time poverty is rarely recognized in policy and practice. Yet income poverty and time poverty are mutually reinforcing; they can sap energy and impede effective decision-making, thus perpetuating the state of poverty. This essay offers a five-step approach to conceptualizing and measuring time poverty and it compares time poverty rates by gender across a range of developing countries. Results show that women have higher time poverty rates than men in most cases, with the main exception being countries with low rates of female labor force participation. Policies that strengthen physical and social infrastructure, thereby decreasing the time needed for unpaid household work, have demonstrable effects on reducing time poverty.

Previous research suggests that women in Sub-Saharan African and other low- and middle-income countries are more time-poor than men. There is also contrary evidence that highlights differences in women's employment rates and access to basic infrastructure. This study examines gender differences in the length of the working day and time poverty in Ghana's Greater Accra Region. The analysis uses a unique primary dataset that includes time spent commuting to and from work and time in paid and unpaid work. Time spent commuting is salient in the Greater Accra Region; commute times can be long and public transport, mainly by trotro, is often uncomfortable. The analysis shows that, when time commuting and in household work are included, women's working days are longer and they are more time-poor than men. Women's greater reliance on trotros for commuting and higher rates of small scale self-employment also contribute to their longer working days. HIGHLIGHTS Time poverty limits time for leisure, sleep, and personal care, impacting life quality. In the Greater Accra Region, working days are long, averaging over twelve hours and commuting times add on average two hours to the working day. Women’s working days are 0.8 h longer, and they are more likely to be time poor. Women's time poverty reflects longer hours in unpaid household work. Self-employed women with no employees are among the most time poor.

Economics is one of the most women and gender resistant disciplines of all. Some Economists who are critical of mainstream economic theory and method have, however, started to apply a gender perspective to economic models. One important feminist critique of macroeconomic theory and policy has been that they do not take into consideration unpaid care work (including domestic work) and paid work in the informal sector. Feminist economists have therefore started to present an alternative view of economic reality that includes work of this kind. Making unpaid care work and paid informal work visible offers a more comprehensive picture of the economy and women's place in it. It also makes it possible to analyse different sectors of the economy and the connections between them. When consideration is given only to the monetary economy, men are seen as more economically active than women, while resources are redistributed from men to women through social security systems and women are subsidised more than men by public services such as childcare and care for the elderly. If however unpaid care work is also included in the analysis, women appear to be as economically active as men, and since they have as long or longer working days, resources might rather be seen as being redistributed from women to men and women's unpaid care work as subsidising men's paid work. Economic theories and models, which integrate paid and unpaid work, are needed especially since the time available for care work, paid and unpaid now seems to be decreasing as a consequence of women's increasing participation on labour märket, savings in the public sector as well as of the fact that services are continuously becoming more expensive in relation to goods since these cannot be replaced by technological advances. At the same time the demand for care work expands because the proportion of elderly is increasing and because children seem to need an ever increasing investment of human and social capital to be able to cope on the labour märket.

Since industrialization paid work has been associated with men. When the labour movement struggled for regulated work time at the beginning of the 20th century it was in reality male labourers working conditions that were at the centre of debate. The demand for “eight hour work day, eight hours leisure and eight hours rest” was an explicit demand, built on an already established gender order; him in paid work and her with responsibility for unpaid reproductive work. This view continues to characterise both the labour market and gender equality policy where a shared responsibility for home and family remains a prioritized goal. The purpose of the article is to from a historical perspective, highlight power relations that underpin the manner in which work, and specifically paid work is conceptualised and consequences of these conceptualisations for women and men from a gender perspective. A review of various attempts to include women’s unpaid work in the home and family, shows that a simple, non-reflexive acceptance of an established work concept risks running into a blind alley where unpaid work is re-evaluated but without possibilities to affect either power relations between paid and unpaid work nor gender relationships between men and women. Our conclusion is that today’s society with emphasis on work-life balance or life puzzle reinforces the gender division of labor and power relations between paid and unpaid labour and tends to reduce gender equality to an individual problem where those with financial resources can buy themselves free from undesired work, while others must rely on State equal opportunity policies but only as long as they do not challenge established assumptions about the way work is defined or conceptualized.

This paper problematises dominant methodologies and epistemologies in research on unpaid care work in Global South contexts. Women’s unpaid work is often called a ‘burden’ in Gender and Development (GAD) discourse, particularly by actors designing policies and practical interventions who cite evidence produced by feminist economists. Drawing on post-colonial feminist critique of Western feminists universalising their experiences of oppression, this paper argues feminist economists must incorporate the complex lived realities of unpaid care work into methodologies. Recognising the diversity of women in the Global South, and their ability to theorise their own oppression and the value of their labour is essential. Care scholars are encouraged to reflexively engage with decolonial perspectives, and design methodologies which elevate women’s voices. This is imperative given the discursive power of feminist economics in shaping GAD agendas, policies, and interventions. Qualitative and interpretive approaches are proposed as one path to broaden knowledge production on unpaid care work.

Care work is the heartbeat of every society: it contributes to our wellbeing as a nation and is crucial for our social and economic development. Yet the disproportionate responsibility for unpaid care work results in time poverty and significant opportunity costs, particularly among the poorest and most marginalized women and girls. This policy brief outlines why unpaid care work is a critical development, economic and gender equality issue for Kenya. It draws on two sets of evidence from Oxfam’s Women’s Economic Empowerment and Care (WE-Care) programme, which explore the impact of women and girls’ heavy and unequal unpaid care responsibilities both before and during COVID-19.

IntroductionThe concept of balance of professional and personal life gained significant importance in the last two decades. This concept became in focus for governments as well as employers, labour unions and academia. In the context of academic literature it is an interdisciplinary problem researched in psychology, sociology, economics and management. Researches on this e topic aim to provide practical outcomes that would help preventing the negative impacts due to lack of work life balance of employees. Globally, the issue of work-life balance was first addressed by Canadian researchers in 2001 (Canadian policy research network, Ottawa). In addition, the United Nations Organization was also engaged in developing a job-quality set of indicators in 2010 (UN Economic commission for Europe, UNECE). In Europe, the following institutions dealt with work-life balance: Laeken indicators of job quality (2001), EUROFOUND (2002), Employment in Europe 2008, ETUI Proposal (2008, UNECE Proposal (2010), European Commission Proposal (2010), The Employment Committee, EMCO (2011). The Work Life Balance measurements by EMCO also provides statistical data. Visser, Williams (2007) suggested that work-life balance has become increasingly important for a number of social and economic reasons that are making organizations think about how they work, government think about how people balance paid and unpaid work and care while individuals think about the role work has and will have at different stages of their lives. WLB is defined differently and consensus is only reached on the definition for division of activities as work related and non-work related and the time allocation - balance between these two dimensions. Empirical research on this topic is initiated by the European Union in frequent intervals. European Foundation for the improvement of living and working condition along with the European working conditions survey and the European business survey (Giaccone, Cesos, 2010) aim to contribute to better living standards and working conditions. The WLB concept of successfully combining professional and personal life is part of European policies and priorities. The novelty and contribution of the study below lies in comparing WLB in the EU calculated as the average for the selected years of 2003, 2007, 2012 with the data obtained from authors' own questionare research on WLB in Slovakia.1.Literature reviewAcademics haven't reached consensus on the understanding and definition of the WLB concept. Therefore one of the possible definitions or views of the concepts is the division of the activities into two categories: work related and non-work related life. Gropel (2006, p. 72) defined it as the division between the different categories of work and non-work nature. Author states that the balance between work and non-work life is seen by individuals, when time is dedicated to both, However it is seen subjectively. Visser, Williams (2006) classify WLB in accordance with priorities of an individual and compatibility with the life fulfilment and work and life roles of this individual, meaning that WLB can be described as state where the devoted time for work and other activities reflects priorities, needs and ambitions of a person.Poelsman. Caligiuri (2008) state that WLB is for the majority of population comprehended as temporary state of harmony or homeostasis, without mental pressure, where harmony can be seen as compatibility, satisfaction and subjective well-being. Balance can be described as equilibrium, state that can begin when two objects are in balance, equally distributed. Poelsman, Caligiuri (2008) claim that this definition is not fully reflected in the concept of WLB, given example that hardworking individual spending larger proportion of time at work, can be at balance, when and if the needs of the individual are fulfilled. Work and social life do not necessarily have to have the same time allocation, time spent in both is not needed to be equal and can still be at balance. …

Work-life dynamics: Comparing time use of employees and self-employed individuals in Slovakia

MotivationThe study is motivated by the persistent low participation in the labour force of women in India, largely attributed to the burden of unpaid domestic and caregiving work. There is a notable lack of empirical studies on this issue due to the previous absence of comprehensive time‐use data. This research aims to fill this gap by exploring the impact of unpaid care work using the latest Indian time‐use data.PurposeThis is an empirical study that investigates the influence of unpaid domestic and caregiving work on the labour‐force participation and employment choices of women in India. Additionally, the study explores the extent of time poverty among working women and identifies its causes.Methods and approachThe study has utilized Time Use in India data 2019. To examine the impact of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics as well as unpaid domestic and caregiving work on labour‐force participation and nature of employment of women, the study has employed logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression, respectively.FindingsThe findings revealed that the time devoted to unpaid domestic and caregiving work reduces the probability of women participating in the labour market. An increase in time invested in unpaid domestic and caregiving work raises the likelihood of women opting for self‐employment. In addition, women workers in India experience higher levels of time poverty than their male counterparts, and this gender disparity in time poverty persists across all employment categories.Policy ImplicationsTo include women in the labour market, it is imperative to recognize, reduce, and redistribute women's unpaid domestic and caregiving work and invest in care‐friendly policies at workplaces to reduce time poverty among women workers.

This study highlights the latest trends in the literature on the relationship between FinTech and sustainability by applying a bibliometric review of documents published in the Scopus database. Bibliometric analysis is a quantitative method that allows researchers to highlight core foundations and recent trends in a specific research field. This analysis was based on trend, evolution, bibliometrics, mapping, and qualitative content analyses. Based on a bibliometric review of 59 papers retrieved from the Scopus database, this study explores the most frequent keywords; the most influential authors, organizations, and countries; the most cited papers; the most co-cited reference papers; and sources. Evolution analysis was conducted using CiteSpace; bibliometric and mapping analyses were performed using VOSviewer; and content analysis was performed using WordStat. The results identified three major clusters: sustainability performance, blockchain technology, and digital transformation. Additionally, the results reveal that the analysis of the association between FinTech and sustainability has experienced increasingly important growth in 2021, reflecting the importance of financial technologies and innovations in business. The findings of this study have implications for Fintech and sustainability research and highlight the importance of Fintech in the development and execution of sustainability strategies and practices, as well as the most relevant research methods. This study provides an overview of how the literature on the association between FinTech and sustainability has developed, as well as a summary of the most influential authors along with countries, organizations, and journal sources. This study offers an opportunity for future research in this field.

This article presents and seeks to make visible what could be an alarming scenario. There is, we believe, a widespread and growing depletion of the capacities and resources for social reproduction ...