Wife: Can I have some money?
Husband: For what?
Just two sentences. A simple conversation. Perhaps played out daily across millions of households in India. But heavy with symbolism. The way society—and men—looks at non-earning women. The homemakers. The pillars of families. Those who work ceaselessly from sunrise—cook, clean, wash up, manage children and more—till bedtime and beyond. Yet, their work is never seen as ‘real work’. Work that is never measured in terms of money. It’s their ‘duty’. It’s how it works in a highly patriarchal world. In the biggest irony of this universe, the term working women does not include those who carry the heaviest burden. The definition of a homemaker is clear—a person who manages the household of his or her own family as a principal occupation. But the bigger issue is not—whether this occupation should be paid in terms of monetary benefits.
The debate has swung back into the spotlight with political parties promising wages/pension for homemakers if voted to power in at least three states—Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. While the political manifestos seem to be clearly gender-driven, as the term used is “housewives”, the larger issue has several layers and intricacies to find unanimous acceptance. For the record, the Economic Survey 2019-20 estimates the number of homemakers in India at 60 per cent of women—about 160 million—in the productive age group of 15-59 years.
Home Truths
Gurgaon-based Ritu Lall, 43, left her job in an international airlines firm after her daughter was born. That was about 12 years ago when she decided to be solely a homemaker and raise her child. However, Ritu is dead against monetising the time and energy she spends on her family. “It’s out of love and affection for them that I decided to give up my job. It’s their appreciation that keeps me going and to reach another level,” says Ritu, who grew up in an upper middle class family. “A salary would break the bridge that I have with my family. I will lose the trust if my work is traded in monetary terms.”
Not too far away, also in Gurgaon, homemaker Amandeep Kaur, 37, has an altogether different opinion. She feels monetary independence for woman is very important and for a homemaker it can come through only when a “legitimate amount” is transferred to her account monthly. “For generations housewives have been taken for granted. This money would give them the encouragement. Every act needs appreciation,” she says.
In urban India, women from relatively secure financial backgrounds may have the luxury of debating the finer points of the issue. They might even enjoy the kitty parties, the ‘mani-pedis’ in posh salons and the weekly shopping spree at swanky malls. But women in the rural hinterlands—most of them illiterate or with little education—have no choice but live a life of drudgery. And provide hard labour to augment family income without ever being considered worthy of sharing the earnings. These are ‘working women’, yet they always come under the category of homemakers or housewives. Always unpaid.
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Then there is the big cloud over the physical and mental well-being of stay-at-home women. National Crime Records Bureau’s data from 2018 show 63 homemakers died by suicide each day. That is more than 17 per cent of all suicides in India that year.
Global Movement
In 2010, India’s deputy registrar of trade unions rejected an application by the National Housewives Association seeking recognition as a trade union. The reason cited was that housework is neither a trade nor an industry. Not much has been heard from the organisation since. Globally, however, there has been a campaign since the Seventies highlighting the need for women to be paid wages or compensation for homework as a means to help them emerge from poverty and dependence on men for sustenance.
In India, the debate found voice prominently during the UPA-II government when Krishna Tirath, then Union women and child development minister, initiated a survey in 2012 and held discussion on how to quantify and remunerate the work of homemakers by their spouses. However, the move could not proceed to a later stage as the Congress-led UPA was voted out of power in 2014. Tirath says that inviting comments from the public on the proposal itself was remarkable. “Housewives were cheerful…they hoped something was finally coming their way towards financial independence. We received cheerful comments and some raised red flags too on how can work done out of love be paid through salary,” Tirath tells Outlook. Her argument then remains the same today, “A homemaker is a house engineer and ensures everything is in place and available when required. What’s wrong in evaluating that in monetary terms?”
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The survey’s time-use findings were a revelation. On an average, an Indian woman spends 19.5 per cent of her time engaged in either unpaid domestic work or unpaid care-giving services. Men, however, spend just 2.5 per cent of a 24-hour period on these activities. In every other group of activities—from employment and learning to socialising, leisure, and self-care activities like sleeping and eating—men spend a higher share of their daily time than women.
Many countries recognise the productive work of women while some give importance to the domestic work done by them. The problem in India is that apart from metros there is hardly any market for domestic work—mostly done by hired hands—so there is no wage rate to measure the work done by women. To compensate a woman for cooking, for instance, there has to be a market rate, many argue. Many countries, particularly the 37-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), now recognise the value of domestic work based on market wage trends.
Venezuela was the first country to pay salaries to homemakers under Article 88 of the constitution with President Hugo Chavez pushing through the reforms on his watch. Many European countries followed suit.
Poll Flavour
This election season has seen the idea take root in India as a political campaign. Tamil superstar Kamal Haasan’s newly-floated party, Makkal Needhi Maiam, was the first to promise monthly fixed salaries to homemakers in its manifesto for the assembly elections in the state. He didn’t quantify the amount but the opposition Congress has promised Rs 2,000 a month to homemakers in Assam as part of its ‘five guarantees’ to voters. In Kerala too, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) has also promised Rs 2,000 a month to homemakers in the age-group 40-60. The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) too has offered a monthly pension to homemakers.
Though the LDF has not spelt out the details of the pension scheme, former state minister and CPI(M) politburo member M.A. Baby tells Outlook that it will work out the modalities later. Baby says the proposal was intended to recognise the services of homemakers as valuable economic activity.
Renana Jhabvala, president of SEWA Bharat—a pan-India organisation representing self-employed women—believes that a basic income, in whatever form, is a good thing. She, however, adds that compensation can only be a token amount as the value of women’s work cannot be measured. “It could be a small amount of money that could be given every month to act as a floor income to women in the bottom 60 per cent of the population. It would act as a good social security system and prevent them from sinking further and becoming desperate to take work at exploitive rates,” Jhabvala says.
In 2012, SEWA had conducted an experiment on basic income in some villages of Indore district in Madhya Pradesh, providing women a token sum in their bank account. Their children too were provided half the amount, but the money was deposited in the mothers’ accounts. Each family got around Rs 1,500 per month. Initially, the well-off families opted to stay out of the scheme, but after two-three months women of these families approached the organisers to have their own bank accounts to receive the monthly payment. The women said they too wanted money to call their own despite opposition from the menfolk.
Dr Pronab Sen, programme director for the IGC India Programme, however, sees a loophole in the idea. “The recognition can be in the form of a token, which is important. I am in two minds about the compensation part because it may create a perverse incentive for husbands to pull their wives out of work, which could lead to a further reduction of women’s participation in the workforce,” he says.
There are other issues as well. Homemaker Nina Mukherjee, 50, of Delhi argues against the one-size-fits-all idea of fixing wages of homemakers. “It should be some percentage of the husband’s salary. Rs 2,000 might make a huge difference for women of the lower income group, but it will be a paltry sum for the middle class. A small amount would be an insult (for many).”
Do The Maths
In December 2020, a Motor Accident Claims Tribunal cited a Supreme Court ruling to award compensation of around Rs 17 lakh to the husband and two minor children of a 33-old-woman killed in a car crash in Maharashtra. The tribunal fixed the deceased woman’s notional salary at Rs 5,000 a month, with the prospect of a future increase of 40 per cent. This raised the loss of “future prospects” to Rs 7,000 a month. “The housewife who contributes for the welfare of the family and upbringing of the children must be given future prospects in as much as with the passage of time, the utility of her services increases in the family (sic),” the tribunal said, quoting the top court’s judgment.
Soumya Kapoor Mehta, head of the Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy, admits that she is not opposed to wages for housework, “but the problem is how to measure it and how do you compensate for it. Will it be based on minimum wages or any other form of compensation? Though politicians have raised the issue they have so far not put forth their views on the subject.”
Some argue that time-use surveys, last conducted in 2019, can be used for measuring the economic value of housework. But the survey data reveals that women rarely count a lot of activities—like livestock care, farm labour, or even preparation of snacks sold by her husband in the market—as work with financial value. Economist Bina Agarwal points to another factor overlooked by political parties promising women wages for housework. “No one realises that Indian homes usually have more than one woman doing housework,” says Agarwal, professor of development economics and environment at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. So, how will a cash transfer be shared? Shouldn’t all adult women be paid? And some families may prefer coupons to buy drudgery-saving appliances which anyone can operate.
Tirath, who had the first tryst with this topic at the national level, admits that it’s not possible for any government—states or Centre—to fund such a huge expenditure. However, she points out that “if there is a will, things could be worked out”. Discussions with several stake-holders like politicians, homemakers, professionals, lawyers and corporates had thrown up varied possible solutions.
Some of the suggestions that emerged—while preparing the CTC for an employee, corporates can have an additional component called homemaker allowance in case the employee’s wife stays at home and does all the housework. Like provident fund, the amount can be credited directly to the account of the employee’s homemaker-wife. Another proposal was a legislation giving legal right to homemakers on a certain percentage of the husband’s salary. “It should be called homemaker allowance, not salary. It will broaden the eligibility. For unmarried sons, the allowance should go to the mother while for the married, it should go to the wife. In case, the husband is the homemaker, he should be paid the same allowance as it is for the wife to bring in gender equality into this debate,” suggested a participant who didn’t want to be named.
Soumya Kapoor Mehta, however, fears that asking husbands to pay an amount to their spouses and the government giving them tax incentives for the payment is deeply problematic as it could be seen as interfering in the way a household operates. It could also lead to husbands asking wives to do more quality work, which again would create problems.
Narendar Pani, professor and dean at the School of Social Sciences, voices misgivings about reducing the role played and work done by women to a financial number. “Even in a regular job, a number does not capture all that they do, even though they are not necessarily the highest paid…You can give them support, but it should only be for their financial independence. It cannot be payment for their work,” Pani says.
Times are, however, changing, as a study conducted by the School of Social Sciences on transformation in rural India across the country revealed. About 25 per cent men had listed domestic work as their secondary occupation. Men are increasingly helping out in the kitchen and other household chores, which is keeping with a growing number of women engaging in economic activities and even migrating in search of work.
Much, however, remains to be done. In India and around the world. Speaking at an international webinar recently, American writer and campaigner for The International Wages for Housework Campaign, Selma James narrated the long fight to get recognition for women’s role in society, including wages, as it is the only solution to the crisis of poverty and overwork outside and within homes. “Poverty and financial dependence has institutionalised us at home and in society in general as caregivers and servants of men,” she said.
Money can’t buy love, they say. Or respect. But a fixed monthly income can certainly buy financial independence for millions of homemakers forced to live under the shadow of their fathers, brothers or husbands. It’s an idea whose time has come, perhaps.
(Inputs by Preetha Nair)
