The COVID-19 situation is unique, something that we have never experienced before. In many countries, including India, a nationwide lockdown was imposed. Most jobs shifted to work from home. Schools closed down. Family members being stuck at home invariably resulted in women bearing the greater burden of household chores. The increased need for care-giving tasks in such uncertain times contributed even more to women’s emotional labour and deteriorating mental health. Therefore, the Indian government should both recognise women’s unpaid and invisible emotional work, as well as take urgent policy steps to help reduce it.
The term "Emotional labour" was first coined by sociologist Arlie Hochschild more than 3 decades ago. It is defined as managing and often suppressing your own emotions in order to make people around you feel comfortable and cared for. Most modern jobs demand emotional labour from everyone. However, women are burdened with more of it. There are several examples that illustrate how women teachers are expected to be more caring, how women politicians have to be more interesting, how wives have to appear more nurturing and many more.
I grew up seeing women in the family working all the time. As times changed, newer generation of males in the family definitely started helping more at home, however, the burden of emotional labour still lies on women. I cannot remember my mother ever enjoying a holiday away from family. Her mind was constantly occupied in ensuring that her children had meals on time, grandma took medication and many such little yet emotionally taxing tasks. She never got a real break. Many women perform these so-called duties so relentlessly and gracefully that the background mental work they put in goes often unnoticed and underappreciated.
The division of emotional labour has been inherently lopsided in our society. OECD data suggests, each day an Indian woman spends about 6 hours doing unpaid care-giving work, as opposed to men who devote less than an hour for it. A report released by Oxfam highlights that economic contribution of this unpaid care work can be 20 times more than India’s entire education budget. The burnout caused because of it, results in worse health outcomes for women. WHO acknowledged that gender is a crucial determinant of mental health, as many more women are prone to mental health issues than men.
This skewed distribution of emotional labour happens largely because women are raised to be more caring and emotionally attuned under the excuse that they are “naturally good at it”. On the other hand, men are allowed to disengage from emotional situations. However, a 2005 study published in Journal of Marriage and Family proves that, it’s not the difference in biology but the social construction of gender that causes such asymmetric distribution of responsibilities. Women are not naturally better at certain things; they are just conditioned to believe so.
It is difficult to quantify this seemingly invisible form of work. Dealing with it becomes more difficult because it is enmeshed with culture, gender norms and personal beliefs. But the very complex nature of this issue calls for equally revolutionary steps to tackle it effectively.
Emotional labour is often correlated with gender disparities in the society. The good news is that, globally, measures are being taken to reduce gender gaps. Despite the complexities, India has made progress on the Global Gender Gap Index score by closing two-thirds of its gender gap so far, especially in women’s education.
To improve further, lessons can be learnt from Bangladesh which ranks first in the South Asian region with highest gender parity. Asian Development Bank’s report shows that Bangladesh’s women empowerment policies have worked on several levels including education, health, poverty reduction and women’s participation in politics. Bangladesh has higher economic participation of women, the area where India is among the worst performing countries. Bangladesh’s Policy for Women’s Development has ensured low gender wage-gap and their recent labour laws have included provisions to compensate unpaid care-work.
Learning from Bangladesh’s model, India too can adopt measures to mitigate gender differences to eventually guarantee more equal distribution of emotional labour, in three ways.
The first approach is to design policies that reduce gaps in childcare. A recent childcare leave policy in India is a good step, allowing single male parents to take childcare leave. But it now needs to go further to allow men rights such as paternity leave, to ensure more equal distribution of the childcare responsibilities.
A second approach would be either to compensate, reduce or redistribute the unpaid work done by women. An article in Policy Perspectives suggests that modifying tax policies like child tax credits, through which parents will be compensated proportional to the amount of time they spend caring for children, can be helpful. To reduce the load of work, providing kindergarten schools at workplaces or community-based childcare, access to better healthcare and sanitation facilities can be possible solutions.
Third, the most important approach is to shift gender norms. Changing social norms requires an acceptance that emotional abilities are not in-born talents but learnable life-skills. Therefore, encouraging initiatives that train men for careers in women-dominated fields can be a great start. One such example is GenderEYE project in Norway through which men are recruited in early childhood education, a field that is traditionally perceived as a woman’s job. Another alternative is providing workplace trainings based on Emotional Intelligence Consortium guidelines. Emotional intelligence is a crucial 21st-century skill that can equip employees to manage their own and others’ emotions well. It can enable them to perform their own share of emotional labour and relieve burden on women.
Emotional labour, though invisible, takes toll on nearly every aspect of women’s lives. It is a global phenomenon that needs recognition, but it is especially pervasive in countries like India. Its roots are tied to traditional gender roles and inability of the society to acknowledge emotional efforts as real work, or that this real, emotional work can be learnt by men as well as women. Just as COVID has revealed this stark divide, now it is imperative for governments in New Delhi and elsewhere to admit we have ignored this issue for too long, and do something about it.
This entry received 2nd prize in an op-ed competition by Bridging GAP (Gender and Policy), a student group at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy which aims to enhance awareness of the importance of gender among public policy students.
Photo credit: Kandukuru Nagarjun