On March 8 each year trade unions and women's rights organisations mark International Women's Day by calling for policies and legislation that better support working women. Such calls relate to wage equality, maternity leave and early childcare programmes.
But these demands tend to overlook the needs of some of the most vulnerable: the millions of poor working women in cities in developing countries who are forced to take their kids with them to work, or miss out on better-paid opportunities because they're caring for young children.
Some women take up work out of their homes – from stitching clothes to making snacks to sell at a market – to take care of their children. The earnings may be lower than in formal employment, but they have no other option, as both decent work opportunities and quality childcare services are rare in poor urban areas. Across 31 developing countries, less than 1 percent of women living in poverty have access to a childcare service.
Low-cost and unregulated childcare services may exist, but are often still too expensive for women informal workers. Public childcare services may not be available in informal settlements or poor urban areas. City plans don't set aside enough designated spaces for childcare centres either near workers' homes or their places of work.
Ultimately, women informal workers earn even less when they have young children in their care. A new report by U.N. Women has found that, across 89 countries, women are 22 percent more likely than men to live in extreme poverty during their prime reproductive years (ages 25 - 34). Women are also less likely to receive a pension or will have lower benefit levels than men. Adequate and quality childcare is not just a critical need for the children involved. It also determines women's participation in the labour force and the type of work they can take on.
A coherent policy response is needed to bring together women informal workers and their organisations with municipal authorities, urban planners, early childhood development experts and relevant national ministries. There is no doubt that quality public childcare services are expensive to set up and run. Yet the returns on investment are great.
In South Africa, for instance, U.N. Women estimates that a gross annual investment of 3.2 percent of GDP into childcare services would extend universal coverage to all those younger than five. It would also create 2.3-million new jobs and raise female employment rates by 10 percent. These new jobs would generate new tax and social security revenue – estimated in the U.S. at up to $3.8-million (~R44.8-million). These gains offset some of the costs to the state and can reduce inequalities brought on by spatial, class, gender and racial or ethnic segregation.
Some child are centres in poorer areas may be affordable, but manage this only by not employing enough staff.
Women workers demanding change
Women are now calling for change. Informal workers organisations in collaboration with trade unions representing formal sector workers are organising a global campaign for quality public childcare services.
Home-based workers, domestic workers, street vendors, market traders and waste pickers are engaging municipalities and governments from Lima to Bangkok, calling attention to their childcare needs. They're also organising to find their own solutions when the state does not listen.
In India, the Self-Employed Women's Association, a trade union representing close to two million women informal workers, runs a childcare cooperative for its members in Ahmadabad. The Market Traders Association in Accra, Ghana manage a childcare centre in a major market for traders, street vendors and others who have to bring their children to work.
However, all of these childcare services also require support from a country's government to be sustainable and remain accessible to the working poor. We conducted a study on these issues for Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organising (WIEGO), a global research-policy-action network focused on securing livelihoods for the working poor in the informal economy.
One Brazilian waste picker said: "Without daycare, I can't work. When there is no daycare, I don't work." Some child are centres in poorer areas may be affordable, but manage this only by not employing enough staff. A street vendor from South Africa told us: "The caregiver had too many children to look after... I used to receive calls notifying me that my child is sitting alone outside our home. The child had left the care facility without the caregiver's awareness."
Quality public childcare services guarantee a better and healthier future for children in these areas and elsewhere, and the many women who work and care for them.
Childcare for a brighter future
Of course, the provision of quality public childcare services is no silver bullet. But it is urgently needed: a quarter of the world's urban population – close to 1-billion people – live in slums today without access to basic services and social security.
The number of urban dwellers is expected to double in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa over the next two decades; more and more people will seek homes in slums and informal settlements. Quality public childcare services guarantee a better and healthier future for children in these areas and elsewhere, and the many women who work and care for them.
One street trader we interviewed in Accra, Ghana, had managed to enrol her son in pre-school while she continued to work, secure in the knowledge that he was cared for. She knew just how valuable this was, saying: "I take my child to the school to get a bright future – I don't want him to be like me."
Rachel Moussié co-authored this article and the research it is based on. She is the deputy director of the Social Protection Programme at WIEGO and leads the childcare initiative supporting informal workers' access to quality childcare services as part of social-protection systems. For further information, please write to childcare@wiego.org.
This piece originally featured in The Conversation and can be viewed here. It has been edited for Huffpost.