Abstract

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.

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