Care Work, Gender, and the Everyday Household: A Theoretical Reading of Unpaid Labour and Social Inequality

Abstract

Care work is very important for daily life, but it is mostly invisible and not valued. It includes cooking, cleaning, looking after children and old people, giving emotional support, and managing the home. People often think this is a natural duty of women. This paper says that unpaid care work is not a natural or private duty. It is created by society through gender rules, family traditions, and social inequality. Using ideas from feminist sociology, social reproduction, and governmentality, this paper shows how families make gender roles look normal. In India, women do much more unpaid housework than men, even when they also have a paid job. So, we must accept care as real work to bring gender justice, equality in the home, and better policies