From Double Burden of Women to a “Double Boon”: Balancing Unpaid Care Work and Paid Work

Abstract

Women in paid work from low income families are engaged in poorly paid, precarious employment, even as they are overburdened with unpaid care work responsibilities. This double burden has depleting consequences for both their mental and physical wellbeing, as well as those of their children. For women in these contexts to move from a double burden to a “double boon”, women’s economic empowerment programmes have to both improve the options and conditions of women’s paid work and recognise, reduce and redistribute their unpaid care work burdens.