Investing in care industries (childcare, elder care, care for persons with disabilities and illness and health care, assistive technologies and infrastructure) will create job opportunities for both women and men and allow women to balance work and family life better so they can stay in the workforce, says Nancy. Photo: 123rf.com
The only way for Malaysia to ensure a 60% participation of women in its workforce – as outlined in the Madani economy framework – is to address the lopsided caregiving burden that women bear and recognise how this has been long and grossly underestimated.
Investing in and developing the country’s care economy, therefore, must be adopted as an important national agenda, says Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri, who adds that care work is the basis of the country’s economic development as well as its socio-economic structure.
“The 60% target of women in the labour force is great and I hope we can achieve this. But for this to happen, there needs to be a solid support system and the government – not just my ministry – must know what it entails and work collectively to make it happen, and to happen fast,” she says.
As of 2022, women’s labour force participation rate (LFPR) in the country was at 55.6% (compared to 82% for men) – one of the lowest in the region. According to the 2018 Labour Force Survey Report, 60.2% of women aren’t in the workforce because of unpaid care duties, which include childcare, eldercare and housework (while the main reason why men aren’t in the labour force is education).
“I admit that when I first came into this ministry, I wasn’t too familiar with the term ‘care economy’. But in the past months, I have learnt and now, I am determined to push this through (formalising and developing the care economy) and get it up and running.”
“Things change in politics and I may not be here (in the Women’s ministry) for more than five years so I want to get this going so that whoever comes next can carry it on,” she says in an interview with The Star recently.
But what exactly is care economy?
The United Nations Economist Network defines care economy as a new way of economic thinking where “care is no longer reduced to a commodity, a personal choice or a family obligation” but recognised as work that is of public good and benefits societies and economies at large.
By formalising the care economy, societies must “stop freeriding on women’s unpaid and underpaid labor, and collectively assume the costs of quality care for all; and where all workers in the care sector enjoy equal pay for work of equal value”.
There are two components in the care economy. First is unpaid care work in households and communities (primarily done by women and girls) and second is paid jobs in the care sector with low pay, but difficult work. Care work is also sometimes carried out by volunteers in associations that look after those who need care.
While Nancy says that she intends to address both components – unpaid and underpaid care work, her initial focus will be on paid jobs in both public and private care sectors.
“Once we address this gap in skilled care workers – and this must not just be women – in the country, we can address the unpaid labour that women do which needs to be recognised and valued,” she says.
One of her immediate priorities is increasing the number of trained and skilled care workers. In her visits to care facilities throughout the country, Nancy says she noticed that not all care workers are adequately skilled.
“While I appreciate the work they do – care work is far from easy – it is important that we have trained workers who can provide proper service to our loved ones. When I was caring for my late mother, I realised how important having a skilled caregiver is. For example, if we didn’t move or turn her properly when she was lying down, we could have injured her or ourselves. These are specific skills that need to be acquired.
“Care work is not a job that a school leaver can do without any formal training. And yet, many homes or institutions that offer care services do not have skilled workers; instead their workers learn on the job. And many don’t stay because the work is tough.
“Whether it is care work for children, the elderly, the disabled or those with special needs, we need care workers who are skilled so that they can teach children well, care for the elderly properly and work with the disabled in the right manner. And we need to be willing to pay these skilled workers well too.
“We say we want to be like developed countries with really good care services and facilities for the elderly. Australia is a good example of this; but for that to happen, we need to train and build our care workers. They should be university graduates,” says Nancy.
The mindset of Malaysians must change too, she says.
“I really hate the attitude of some who aren’t willing to pay good prices for care workers. There are those who complain that care workers charge too much. But this is difficult work and if you want a job well done, if you want your loved ones to be cared for properly, your child to learn well and your parents to be looked after with care, you have to be willing to pay. It’s not an easy job,” she says.
Nancy says she is determined to push through the formalising and developing of the country's care economy while she is in the ministry. — ONG SOON HIN/The StarTraining of care workers
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), mainstreaming the care economy will benefit people’s lives in many ways. It will also benefit the economy. In its Issue Brief: Investing in the Care Economy: Opportunities for Malaysia, senior development economist (UNDP Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam) Dr Haniza Khalid outlined the need for Malaysia to have in place, quality care services as the country will become an aged society in 2044 (with more than 14% of the population aged 65 years and above) and a super-aged society in 2056 (>20% of the population aged >65 years).
Developing a care economy, she writes, “can lead to innovation and de-stigmatisation of care services, leading to professionalising the care industry and generating employment and contribution of the care sector to the GDP.”
This is the point that Nancy wants to reiterate.
“Establishing and developing the care economy is good for the country. That’s why I talk about the care economy (in Cabinet meetings) any chance I get so that my colleagues understand how important it is to build a care economy. But it’s of course, not enough to talk about it; I must make the government take notice and pay attention to the need for it. I talk about it so much that when the Prime Minister spoke about the Madani Economy, he joked that if he didn’t mention the care economy, ‘Nancy will be angry’.
“But it’s not about me being angry or not. He can joke about it but I mean it. I will push for this to happen not just for the elderly or for children or the disabled but for our society and country,” says Nancy, adding that she is pushing for a bigger budget for this in Budget 2024 (to be tabled on Oct 13).
The Institut Sosial Malaysia (ISM – an agency under the ministry) will be the accrediting body for the training of care workers, says Nancy. The institute was established in 2002 as a training centre for civil servants and other social practitioners.
“We have the infrastructure so why aren’t we making use of it?” she says.
However, since getting the accredited training programmes up and running needs some time, the ministry will collaborate with the Human Resources Ministry to run the training under the TVET training programmes.
“It isn’t ideal as TVET is more for technical programmes but because we want to get this started, we are working with the Human Resources Ministry to help us for the time being,” she says, adding that the ministry is requesting for RM1.8mil in initial funding for the training of caregivers.
Private sector participation
The private sector needs to step in and do its part too, says Nancy. Whether this is by providing daycare services or offering incentives or subsidies to their workers, more companies and corporations need to play their part and invest in care infrastructure and services.
“There are only some companies with good policies in place, and more need to step up,” she says.
Investing in care industries (childcare, elder care, care for persons with disabilities and illness and health care, assistive technologies and infrastructure) will create job opportunities for both women and men and allow women to balance work and family life better so they can stay in the workforce.
The UNDP brief outlines the “fundamental role” of the private sector in achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – SDG target 5.4 is to reduce and redistribute unpaid care work, and establishing a care economy will also address other SDGs such as poverty eradication (SDG1), food security and nutrition (SDG2), health and well-being (SDG3), quality education and lifelong learning (SDG4), gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls (SDG5), inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work (SDG 8) and reduced inequalities (SDG10).
“Investments and solutions in the private care economy can have different long-term benefits, including reducing healthcare costs for individuals and states, professionalising the care industry and generating employment, increasing the contribution of the care sector to GDP while increasing the number of care employees and changing people’s perceptions of care and levels of independence of the people benefitting from care services,” the report states.
Changing people’s perceptions of care work is important and will have a bearing on unpaid labour that women do – which is next on Nancy’s to-do list.
“I met many women who describe themselves as ‘just a housewife’. This is where recognition of unpaid work comes in. We must realise that these women do valuable work and this corresponds to the millions of women who are out of the workforce because of unpaid work,” she concludes.
