The Value of Unpaid Work: film at the VPL

I am so glad you are screening the unpaid work movie. The issue is very current and as we head into a possible federal election, you could not have timed this discussion better. As women are empowered to enter any paid career and get pay equity there, it is an irony that the one taboo and banned role is now the traditional unpaid role as caregiver. That one seems to have not get won the same acclaim or respect and yet it continues to be a role someone has to do, tending the young, sick, handicapped, elderly or dying. I love the way Marilyn Waring has toured the world noticing that the devaluing of this role is universal and the movement to get it valued has to be fought everywhere. At stage one of women’s movement there was a push to get all women the vote and citizen even in Canada ‘person’ status. Stage two was to get women into the paid work field equal to men, educated as well, promoted as fast, paid as generously. But there is a stage three and it is to value the roles we still have as caregivers. I love the way Marilyn Waring points out how national economies blindly assumed someone would do this role, unpaid, and not even tallied as a part of the GDP, when in fact the state depends on the nurturing of others as its anchor. As we face an election I hope provinces and the federal government recognize that it is not really a solution to get women free daycare so they can’ work’. The real insight is that women with small children already are working, and the real push should be to government to value care work. The funding for children should flow to parents and then can purchase sitter, nanny or daycare as they prefer, or can offset salary sacrifice if they use dad, mom or grandma care. Liberals tend to argue for daycare only. It is a bias the third wave of women’s rights sees past. Conservatives funding kids at only $100 a month was way too little and for way too little time, till age 6 only. Care work to raise kids goes to 18. In Czechoslovakia family allowance even goes beyond that.