Firms that boost support for workers with unpaid care and domestic work responsibilities are waking up to the fact that this not only enhances women’s rights and wellbeing, but also productivity. In the first in a blog series for the International Day of Care, Fatema Tuz Johoora, Achmad Fuad Fathurrahman and Leah Payud share insights from pilots in Indonesia and the Philippines of an Oxfam care toolkit for business launching soon.
The Gross Domestic Problem: What Would A New Economic Measure That Values Women and Climate Look Like?
The fixation with measuring progress by Gross Domestic Product leads straight to gender injustice, austerity and environmental ruin. Anam Parvez Butt and Alex Bush introduce a new Oxfam discussion paper that aims to encourage debate about alternative metrics, and calls on advocates to join the “Beyond GDP” movement Illustration by Alex Bush Since its official adoption at the Bretton Woods …
I’m an unpaid carer: I have no paid job – but I do have value
The value of unpaid care for disabled, ill and older people in the UK is equal to the entire budget of the NHS, yet it’s not even counted in our GDP. In a blog for Carers Week, Katy Styles explains why she founded the grassroots, volunteer-led We Care campaign to demand a new deal for the millions of invisible carers like her.
How can we tell a new story that boosts support for all care and carers?
The millions of paid and unpaid carers across the UK – including parents and guardians of children, social care and childcare workers, and unpaid carers for disabled, ill and elderly people – desperately need a new deal. Silvia Galandini, Anam Parvez (both Oxfam GB) and Nick Gadsby (The Answer) introduce a new toolkit that can help build public pressure for change, by constructing a fresh and compelling narrative about the value of all care.
It’s time for the UK to start caring about its carers
Millions of people provide essential paid and unpaid care such as support for children, disabled, ill and older people. Yet their huge contribution contrasts starkly with threadbare state support for their work. Anam Parvez and Silvia Galandini look at the high price carers, and especially women, pay for society undervaluing care – and the policies we need to fix our broken care infrastructure.
So much of the work that millions of Asian women do is invisible: here’s how to change that and value unpaid care
The huge economic contribution of women carers in Asia and the Pacific remains invisible, undervalued and unsupported by governments. Changing that means better research, investment in public services, and including carers in policy making, say Myrah Nerine Butt and Saleha Shah
Governments know shockingly little about the millions of informal and unpaid women workers – and, in a world that undervalues their labour, that’s no accident
Millions of unpaid care and informal workers too often live in poverty, face long hours with harsh conditions, and see their efforts dismissed as “not real work”. On International Workers’ Day, Alex Bush calls for those in power to find out much more about these women as a crucial first step to valuing their work.
Migrant women are raising their voices against an unjust childcare system: it’s time to listen to them
Whether depriving nannies of labour rights, or locking mothers out of child benefit, the UK can be a callous place for migrant childcare workers and parents, says Veronica Deutsch. And the battle to reform the childcare system starts by listening to the women affected.
Asian countries are making women and carers pay a painful price for austerity
A recent analysis by Oxfam ranked Asia as the worst global region for investment in public services. In our final blog for the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence, Myrah Nerine Butt spells out how such economic policy choices add up to structural violence against Asian women
As austerity devastates women’s lives, we want to highlight the economic face of gender-based violence
As governments across the globe slash social protection and public services, that will hurt millions of women and girls, who will be pushed into poverty, exploitation, ill health and insecurity. That’s why, says Dana Abed, during this year’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, Oxfam will be highlighting the devastating impact of austerity on women, girls and non-binary people