Time Use Studies and Unpaid Care Work

Across the world, unpaid care work—unpaid housework, care of persons, and "volunteer" work—is done predominantly by women. This is an area that has generally been neglected by economists as well as many development actors. Yet the amount of unpaid care work done and the way the burden of this work is distributed across different individuals have important implications for the well-being of individuals and households, as well as for economic dynamism and growth.

This book examines the variation across seven, mostly developing, countries in patterns of paid and unpaid care, drawing on data from large-scale time use surveys. The book concludes that responses need to be grounded in an analysis of specific contexts, which in turn strengthens the need for data collection and the type of analysis presented in this book.

1-What do Time Use Studies Tell Us about Unpaid Care Work? Evidence from Seven Countries, Debbie Budlender
2-Tanzania: Care in the Context of HIV and AIDS, Debbie Budlender
3-South Africa: When Marriage and the Nuclear Family Are Not the Norm, Debbie Budlender
4-Unpaid Care Work: Analysis of the Indian Time Use Data, Neetha N. and Rajni Palriwala
5-Republic of Korea: Analysis of Time Use Survey on Work and Care, Mi-young An
6-Analysis of Time Use Surveys on Work and Care in Japan, Yuko Tamiya and Masato Shikata
7-The Case of Nicaragua, Isolda Espinosa González
8-Unpaid Care Work in the City of Buenos Aires, Valeria Esquivel

To read chapters 1 and 7, please use the links under Additional information on the right.