TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Businesses can address gender inequality and unpaid care work
Businesses have a vital role in facilitating and reforming care policy to address the wider issue of gender discrepancies in unpaid care work.
Change Size
Learning time: Kids participate in preschool activity. Expense and the lack of access to daycare centers are blamed for the low participation of women in the labor force. (Shutterstock/anek.soowannaphoom)
A
s Indonesia emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the road to recovery should be paved with reflections on past mistakes and remedies to existing social issues with a holistic balance of social and economic concerns, without compromising either.
The controversial Job Creation Law marked a worrisome approach by prioritizing the latter, the passage of which was met with widespread protests, along with condemnation from labor unions and environmental groups. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s recent regulation in lieu of law (Perppu) on job creation accommodates some of the requests made by the labor unions and replaces the original job creation law.
While this does indicate a positive step in terms of protecting human rights for workers, other issues have evaded the spotlight while also experiencing significant reversals despite the decades of progress that have been made. Amongst these issues is the exacerbation of gender disparities in unpaid care work.
Indonesia is unique in that it has one of the highest discrepancies in unpaid care work by women in Southeast Asia, at almost double the average. The financial stress onset caused by the pandemic, in conjunction with lockdowns, widespread disease and the closure of schools and many care facilities placed additional care demands on women.
Ultimately, this forced many women out of work in an already hostile and volatile labor market with several barriers to re-entry. Because the problem of unpaid care work by women goes unnoticed, approximately 40 percent of Indonesian women exit the workforce due to childcare and marital obligations. Women’s labor-force participation, their economic autonomy, bargaining power and representation in informal work are all adversely impacted as a result.
This adverse impact foregrounded the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) report “Care at Work: Investing in Care Leave and Services for a More Gender Equal World of Work”, launched in Indonesia in November of 2022.The report argues for a holistic and all-encompassing reform to care policy, purporting that its advocacy for a transformative care-policy package generates jobs, decent work, solidifies social-protection schemes and tackles long-standing gender inequalities.
This comprehensive and landmark report in light of global post-pandemic recovery examines the various aspects of care reform, ranging from parental leave, protections for nursing women, childcare reform and much more.
