Sri Lanka Team’s Pilot Survey finds the toll of unpaid caregiving

Under the direction of Dileni Gunewardena, a team of researchers traveled to four regions in Sri Lanka and interviewed unpaid caregivers. The pilot survey laid the groundwork for a much larger survey that the team will conduct next. This larger survey will be partially funded by the Co-Impact Foundation.

Methods

This pilot quantitative household survey of caregiving sought “to uncover the nature and scope of care work in Sri Lanka, capturing both paid and unpaid dimensions. It aim[ed] to reveal patterns in caregiving relationships, explore decision-making processes surrounding care provision, and evaluate the perceptions of care recipients regarding the quality and accessibility of services. Additionally, the survey endeavor[ed] to identify the financial, social, and institutional support systems that caregivers rely on.understand the nature of paid and unpaid care work in Sri Lanka, patterns in caregiving relationships, how decisions are made for care provisioning, and how care recipients perceive the quality of services. The team interviewed caregivers in 207 households about care-related tasks, time use, and norms.”

The four districts included:

• Gampaha district, which is a predominantly urban/suburban area populated by majority Sinhala (ethnic group)
• Vavuniya district, which is a majority Tamil area, and may also reveal post-conflict dynamics
• Trincomalee district which includes Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim ethnic groups within the district
• Kandy district, which also contains several ethnic groups with households from the plantation sector, where female labour force participation (mainly on tea estates) is higher than in other regions

Key Findings

Most Care is Familial

For children, most care is performed by parents or grandparents. For eldercare and care of persons with disabilities, most care is provided by offspring, spouses or siblings.

Care Work has Costs

The evidence reveals that care is an intensive task that impacts well-being, with substantial trade-offs between care of dependants and other activities.

Care Work is Heavily Gendered

Deep-rooted patriarchal breadwinner norms place the burden of care and housework on women