‘My work never ends’: Women’s experiences of balancing unpaid care work and paid work through WEE programming in India

This paper examines the relationship between paid work and unpaid care work for women in low-income households, in order to better understand the relationship between women’s participation in paid work and economic empowerment. It is also interested in analysing whether, and if so how, women (may) achieve a positive balance between their unpaid care work and paid work responsibilities such that their economic empowerment is optimised, shared across generations, and sustained.

The paper seeks to do this by mapping the social organisation of care, including the influence of gender norms, in low-income households across four sites in India, and assessing how women (and sometimes girls) cope with their dual burdens.