Editor’s Letter: ‘Thank you to the homemakers - we owe you’

“Don’t compare me to a homemaker!”

This outburst of a fairly civilized professional woman complaining in a neighbourhood WhatsApp group to a broadband vendor about not being available at home at all times for Wi-Fi service caught my attention. Consider it said that it also got my goat!

Homemakers, for far too long, have been the target of many assumptions. The belief that women do it by choice to lead an easy existence is used to play down their efforts and labour. A few years ago, I was attending a conference for women professionals and upon shaking hands with a homemaker mother of one such professional, she introduced herself saying, “I do not work.” The moment stayed with me. As I stepped up the dais and spoke about the conference topic and focused on women employment, I couldn’t stop myself from asking the public at large about homemakers: “Does she not attend to the house, does she not look after the family, does she not cook, does she not deal with innumerable domestic responsibilities? Is that not work?”

The widespread notion that homemakers do not step out and work, hence they do not hold financial and economic importance, is a major fallacy. And yes, financial compensation to value their efforts at home is needed.

The International Labour Organisation estimates project that the time spent in unpaid work is 16.4 billion hours per day, with women contributing more than three-quarters of the total, thus equivalent to 2 billion people working on a full-time basis without pay. In India, women work on an average of 351.9 minutes per day on unpaid work, compared to an average of 51.8 minutes per day compared to men. In fact, women do four times more unpaid care/domestic work in Asia than men.

While quantifying the value of a homemaker’s efforts cannot be a flippant calculation task, the least we can do is acknowledge and dignify their endeavours. This festive season, we ask for a bonus on her behalf. It could be money; gratitude; gifts; a dinner or dollops of love. Thank you to all the homemakers—we owe you!