Sharing the motherload: Engaging fathers and other key stakeholders to transform gender policy and foster care economies

Gender inequality is a key challenge confronting South Africa. The persistent legacies of colonialism and apartheid continue to harm low-income women of colour, perpetuating gender inequality and negatively impacting women and children, the economy, and the country’s overall development. Gender norms impose unrealistic care-work expectations on women, who head 42% of households in a highly patriarchal society. This care work is often performed in challenging conditions exacerbated by the country’s extreme income inequality, apartheid-era spatial planning, and inadequate economic policies.

Easing low-income mothers’ care-work burden

Researchers from the University of Cape Town and the South African Medical Research Council partnered in early 2023 with low-income mothers, the Western Cape Government, and women’s rights organization Flourish on a pilot project using photovoice. They sought to understand the mothers’ intersecting vulnerabilities and to explore ways of improving their quality of life. The initiative highlighted the highly gendered, often-invisible, under-valued work individuals performing mothering undertake, and which hinders their economic security, safety, and wellbeing (the “motherload”). Difficult living conditions and lack of male-partner involvement in childcare and household tasks compound the motherload. The study revealed women’s unpaid care work continues to be under-recognized in South Africa despite gender-equity legislation.

Toward care-responsive policies

Building on the earlier work, this project seeks to engage fathers on the motherload and raise awareness among policymakers, development funders and other key stakeholders about the gaps in current understandings of care. The goal is to promote recognition of the impact of the heavy and unequal responsibility of unpaid care work on low-income women and to foster care-responsive policies and interventions.