This paper contextualizes and reviews recent research on unpaid care work in the Global South, with a particular focus on projects funded through the multi-donor Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) program and IDRC.
Providing subsidized early childcare in an urban African slum area can produce important benefits, like increasing maternal employment and earnings.
Women's labour force participation and wages are deeply influenced by social norms, and in developing countries, economic growth alone has no robust effect on female employment.
In societies throughout sub-Saharan Africa childcare is largely the responsibility of mothers and other female family members, which can limit their employment options.
Many economic empowerment programs focus on increasing women's labour force participation. But without addressing their disproportionate burden of unpaid and exhausting care work, women hardly benefit from more hours of paid employment.
These vivid on-the-ground perspectives — gathered from countries where Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) researchers conducted fieldwork — are a testament to the resilience and insights that women everywhere bring to the challenge
Affordable childcare can help open up economic opportunities for single mothers.