Measuring Care: Gender, Empowerment, and the Care Economy

Abstract

How should “care” be defined and measured in ways that enhance our understanding of the impact of economic development on women? This paper addresses this question, suggesting several possible approaches to the development of indices that would measure gender differences in responsibility for the financial and temporal care of dependents.

Keywords:

• Gender
• Care
• Empowerment
• Dependents
• Unpaid work
• Time use

Acknowledgements

This paper is a revised version of the paper that was presented at the expert meeting to review the GDI and GEM that was organized by the Human Development Report Office in New York in January 2006. The author is grateful for the helpful comments from the participants at this meeting. The author would also like to thank the Government of The Netherlands for their support for this paper through the UNDP's Gender Thematic Trust Fund.