No, Kamal Haasan. Pay for Household Work Won t Help Indian Women. These Policy Prescriptions Would
When actor-politician Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) released a seven-point manifesto for
Reimagining Tamil Nadu in the run-up to the 2021 elections, a glass ceiling was broken. They proposed that homemakers should get
“
due recognition through payment for their work at home which hitherto has been unrecognized and unmonetized, thus raising the dignity of womenfolk.” The Supreme Court also recently directed an insurance firm to estimate the value of homemakers’ notional income.
To see mainstream politicians and judges recognize the burden of women’s disproportionate domestic work, and make it an election issue is heartening especially because Indian women spend up to 10X the time on unpaid domestic work as men, vis-à-vis the global average of 3.2X. However,