Women’s Economic Engagement and Childcare: Moving from Survival to a ‘Triple Boon’

Women’s childcare responsibilities are often seen as a barrier to them undertaking paid work. However, this is a two-way interaction, mediated by large quantities of unpaid work. Women thus find themselves in a downward spiral of a ‘triple burden’ consisting of (a) time‑consuming, yet unpaid work with no economic returns to them; (b) informal and back‑breaking low-paid work; and (c) supervisory childcare and domestic tasks like cooking, cleaning, and fetching water and fuel. This policy brief provides recommendations to reverse this spiral to achieve a ‘triple boon’ such that women are able to engage economically in decent paid work; undertake less drudgerous unpaid work tasks with control over any economic returns; and receive support for redistributing their childcare and domestic chores.