Estimating the Paid Care Sector in Sri Lanka

Dileni Gunewardena, Ashvin Perera, and Hasna Munas focus on care providers who offer paid services to both children and the elderly within the context of Sri Lanka. In the attached paper, they describe the care landscape in relation to early childhood care and elderly care while delving into the complexities of measuring paid care work in Sri Lanka.

Citation

Gunewardena, Dileni and Perera, Ashvin. 2023. “Estimating the Paid Care Sector in Sri Lanka”. Presentation at 31st IAFFE Annual Conference 2023 – International Association for Feminist Economics: Envisioning feminist economics strategies for an equitable and sustainable world, July 5-8, 2023, Cape Town, South Africa.

Summary:

• The number of paid care workers increased between 2017 and 2019 and then fell in 2020 across genders

• The change in the share of employed women in paid care is greater
  than the change in the share of employed men in paid care
• A shift in employment has a greater shift in paid care for women
• The proportion of men to women in employment is increasing over
  time
• The proportion of women to men in paid care has decreased during
  Covid-19

Gunewardena, Perera and Munas, Research Paper