Care Crisis and

Distribution of Care BurdenShen Youjia

Renmin University of China

China-India Feminist Economics Workshop

Gender dimensions of paid and unpaid work in China and India

Kunming, China 26-28 September 2014

The Second Children Policy and Fertility Desire

• Couples meet specified criteria allowed a second child – Both husband and wife are the only child of their own family (depend on provincial policy, at

the beginning of the 21th century) – Either husband or wife is the only child of their own family (2013)

• No considering One-child policy, fertility desire of Chinese families is low– 2007 national residential fertility desires public opinion survey data show that under the One-

child policy, the number that childbearing age-women want to give birth is 1.89;without the policy, the number is only 1.88. There is almost no difference between .

– Urban families :Based on the survey in 2010, the average number of children bearing desire is between 1.0 to 1.2 in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and other large cities.

– Urban-immigrant families: the 2000 census data has confirmed that, compared with the rural and urban population, the urban-immigrants have the lowest fertility rate.

• After the 1990s, economic and social factors have become the main reason for low fertility rate instead of One-child policy.

• Among the respondents that do not want to have children, the majority reason is economic factor——too expensive to afford. At the same time, some people give the answer that” women bear unilaterally too much.”

• To get positive response, the two-children policy has to solve the share-mechanism of newborn’s care burden. Who will undertake the main caring burden that maternity primarily brought about——the nation, the society (employers should play an important role) , the household sector, or the certain individual , such as the mother?

• To determine to have a child, couples need to consider whether they can afford the cost of caring and the expenditure of raising them before adulthood. The mismatch between living wages and soaring prices, especially housing prices, has put obstacles to many young couples. Care responsibilities restrict parents (mostly mothers) working hours and job opportunities, it’s possible that expenditure increase s, however income decreases, hard to make ends meet.

• In countries and regions that birth control is not implemented, if individuals are allowed to decide how to make best use of their time, the family (women in more cases) are likely to alleviate the burden of caring by delaying, reducing, or even refuse to fertilise. According to CIA estimates, in 2012 the total fertility rate in Asia: Japan 1.39, South Korea 1.23, Taiwan 1.16, Hong Kong 0.97, Macau 0.91, much lower than the normal inter-generational replacement level.

• Care crisis often is simply attributed to the childbearing age-women who lack responsibility, sacrifice, and pursuing hedonism. However, according to a closer review , one should ask that who deplete the prepared mothers’ love?:

• If the care provider‘s service continuously lack adequate recognition of its social value and compensation , people who bear the responsibility increasingly find themselves unable to bear the financial burden arising from exposure outside the labor market, the amount of care supply will be less than optimal. – Most male are still unwilling to give more care work and the living

wage paid is not enough to buy expensive private care services. – The State lacks the ability and willingness to provide affordable, easy

accessed public care services or private care subsidies.

I. Division of Domestic Labor and Consequences

• The primary responsibility assigns to women by culture is to take care rather than to earn market income. – According to All China Women’s Federation (ACWF) survey at the end of 2011, the employ rate of women

between 25-34 years old who have young children at or below 6 is 10.9 % lower than who with no young children at the same age in urban area.

– In rural area, the employ rate of 25-34 year old women with young children is 6.7% lower than who without young children.

– 18.9% of employed mother give up their personal development opportunities sometimes or always, 6.5 % higher than men

• According to "2008 China Time Use Survey" data, males engage in paid work for six hours per day, the female is 4 hours and 23 minutes, one hour and 37 minutes less than men; Time spend on unpaid labor per day is 1 hour 30 minutes for men, 3 hours 54 minutes for women, 2 hours 24 minutes more than men; men enjoy 4 hours and 11 minutes leisure and self-care time per day, while women 3 hours and 35 minutes, 36 minutes less than men.

• Care burden becomes obstacle of decent job and economic independence of women. Gender rank of labor market leads to gender rank inside household. Even those who share their economic resources in marriage, divorce or demise of the partner possibly results in mother and children’s poverty, not the father’s.– Income survey of lone mother in Beijing(2006) suggests, 54.5% lone mother earns less than 800 Yuan a

month, 83% earns less than 1000,amongst 6.8% earns nothing. The household monthly revenue is 1678 Yuan comparatively.

– According to the same survey, lone mother occupies in middle-low professional rank,33.2% unemployed,33% retired or informally employed.

Care Privatization and Consequences

• According to Ministry of Labor and Social Security ,the surveyed of 1600 urban households in Shenyang, Qingdao, Changsha, Chengdu and families in 2008, 40% needs care services. The number of nursing workers calculate at least more than 15 million in 32 mega-cities and 43 cities in China.

• Household management platform subordinated to Shanghai Family Service Industry Association released their survey of household service employees’ income, the percentage of income increase of Yuesao is 350-400%, nursing maid is 500-600%, long-term part-time and live-in caregiver is 400-500%, elderly care is 350%, part-time (hourly rate) was 300%. Wage or total cash income before tax of undergraduate 6 months after graduation in Shanghai rose an average of 220-230% in ten years.

• Informal market mode– Business model mainly based on intermediary and the

main business alienate into selling “care workers” to collect agency fees. There is no preliminary assessment of the care workers, no strict identity verification and no appropriate training for care workers. Also no joint responsibility for following services, the contract lacks effectiveness.

– The care workers face personalized, non-homogeneous families as their employers, as a result, their rights are not effectively protected.

– The cared family directly play a role as an employer, in this condition, it also plagued by many problems.

Princing and Quality of Care Services• The employer families can be divided into two categories: One has rigid demand of

care service, who generally have middle or lower-middle-income;one has less care burden, they pursue high standards of life and hiring nursing as complement, who generally earns higher- middle or high income. The pricing of care depends on the purchasing power of middle-income urban families.

• Living wage paid to employee families could not cover the cost of care services, only including the expenditure of buying consumption goods. Only business owners and senior managers who share surplus value or other families who excess to share surplus value have extra purchasing power to afford care services after paying for necessary living goods. As to the families that have rigid demand of care services, with living wage fails to share surplus value, have to reduce necessary expenses to give a priority to but care services. Low-income care service demander will cause a downward pressure on price, which in turn affect the quality of average care services.– Hourly domestic server, live-in caregiver, childcare nursing workers, hospitals and other care

workers are explicitly excluded from the scope of "Labor Law".– Rural emigrant domestic workers join neither insurance item in social insurance system.– Domestic care workers work and live in the employer's home, the eating and living standards,

human dignity, personal privacy is important aspects of labor rights. These rights are vulnerable to abuse and there is no effective remedy.

Denying Public Care and Consequence

• Maternity leave policies– According to “special provisions to protect women workers labor” that

released at May 2012, women worker enjoys 98 days maternity leave, with prenatal leave 15 days; the dystocia has more 15 days maternity leave; for multiple births, one more baby more 15 days. Lack parental leave policies to encourage father to take parental responsibilities.

• Child welfare allowance policy– “embedded system” of child welfare, such as social security, subsistence

allowances, health insurance, disability services, and education. Mainly focus on relief and scareces national child allowances .

• Housewife pension policies – No specific policy about the pension. Only “flexible employment pension

insurance” policy suits housewives and paid by the housewife themselves. Social security subsidy entitled to flexible employment does not apply to housewives. Because an important is to get a certificate of the employment situation of flexible employment by street labor and social security institutions.

• Tax incentives– There is no income tax policy that allowing tax reduction accordance with care responsibilities

families undertake. • Public child care policies

– No public institutions providing care services for children under 3 years old. According to the National Women's Federation’s survey at the end of the 2011, 99.9% children under 3 undertaken cared by households, amongst mother as primary care giver during day time accounted 63.2%.

– 35.9% of rural children between 3 to 10 years old never been to kindergarten for the main reason that “ there is no kindergarten nearby”.

– Urban kindergarten accepting children 3 years old above also face a huge gap between supply and demand. Taking Beijing for example, up to the end of 2009, legally registered kindergarten amounted to 1253, among public kindergarten 844, accounting for 67% approximately. These legally registered kindergartens can accept 247,000 children. However, during 2004 to 2007, 460,000 babies were born in Beijing, supply vacancy was nearly the half of the new borns.

– Across the country, there are 172,500 kindergartens in 1992 and only 111,800 left in 2002, having dropped about 35%. Fiscal educational budget only invested to the minority of public kindergartens. As a result, the majority of kindergartens rely on private capital investment. They either charge for exorbitant fees or lacking of hardware facilities or teachers.

• The End• Thanks!