Urban working class households have faced the brunt of Sri Lanka’s polycrisis. Since 2020 these households have been impacted by unprecedented shocks that have led to a reduced nutrition, worsening health, learning loss, increased household debt and asset loss, and an overall increase in time poverty. These burdens have also been gendered, as women have played a crucial role in helping their families respond to shocks, from foregoing time and labour saving devices to conserve electricity after tariff hikes, to taking on additional income generating activities to meet rapidly increasing expenses. Furthermore, Sri Lanka’s social protection systems have proved inadequate, particularly as targeted cash transfers such as Aswesuma failed to account for the nature of urban poverty, leading to the exclusion of vulnerable urban poor households. 

Women spend more time on unpaid carework, including child care, housework and participating in voluntary and community work, and have greater time poverty than their male counterparts. Unpaid care work limits female labour force participation, particularly due to lack of child care options. This report explores care burdens faced by working mothers in low income communities in Colombo, seeking to understand how they balance work and child care responsibilities. It also examines how social protection can be better suited to meet the different dynamics and needs that these women face within their households, places of work and beyond. Research methodology included qualitative interviews with 45 working mothers, focus group discussions and design-based workshops on social protection with communities, with 171 participants validating report findings and recommendations. 

Key Findings 

A majority of respondents worked in the informal sector. A majority of jobs held by respondents involved performing traditional gender roles  such as cleaning, cooking, serving food and tea, sewing, nursing, washing clothes, and looking after small children. Other feminised jobs include those working in the beauty, retail and garment sectors. Those in the formal workforce, particularly in the state sector, tended to be performing clerical work. A majority of respondents  worked in the informal sector with no legal protections or benefits. 22% of respondents received retirement benefits such as EPF/ETF or pensions. Only a third of respondents could take paid leave. 

Women often selected or left jobs based on child care arrangements and the compatibility of work with child care. Mothers of children with disabilities carried exceptionally heavy physical, emotional and financial burdens, often leaving the workforce entirely.

Respondents with no child care opted for part time work that aligned with their child’s schooling or started a home-based business. Their income was low and unpredictable as a result. The most common source of child care for working mothers was their own mothers, who were the most trusted source of child care. However, this had implications for the health of aging women entrusted to take care of their grandchildren, and many respondents had no child care options when their mothers fell ill. Respondents also relied on older children, especially daughters, to watch younger children which came at the cost of education and employment opportunities. Relatives and neighbours also provided child care, but no husband was the sole source of child care, even when unemployed.  Households in settlements were also able to leave their children at home alone, benefiting from close-knit communities and the passive surveillance and supervision provided by neighbours. Relocated high-rise communities faced weakened support networks and greater child care insecurity. 

While use of formal day cares was extremely low, respondents identified private profit-oriented day cares and subsidised faith-based day cares as the two main options. Those who used day cares had done so often as a last resort, lacking any other child care alternatives. Reticence to use day cares was driven by concerns around safety and emotional well-being of children, affordability and quality of day cares, and the belief that mothers were responsible for the upbringing of their children. 

Apart from paid work, women had to also perform other unpaid carework including cooking, housework, laundry, accompanying children to school, tuition and other activities, and supervising children’s homework. As such, many women sacrificed sleep and rest. Some respondents also left employment when it interfered with domestic responsibilities. Women working night shifts described moral judgment, apprehension around safety, and physical exhaustion, as domestic responsibilities continued despite night-time work. Night work was not seen as a form of empowerment, but a means of trading sleep for income.

Recommendations 

Strengthening Sri Lanka’s urban infrastructures of care requires sustained investment, community-centred design, and a transformative social protection approach. Moreover, it requires viewing social protection as a constellation of interventions rather than a single targeted intervention. If implemented in parallel and incrementally over time these recommendations would reduce burdens on families, enable long term gains in livelihood, health, education and strengthen a fraught social contract. It would also enable women to improve their quality of life by reducing their time poverty, gain time for rest and leisure and be economically active through means of their own choosing. 

Ensuring well-resourced care infrastructures in the city

Day cares and creches should be located in communities, employ and train staff from the communities and be able to extend hours for women to work a full day. These facilities should be safe, affordable with appropriate infrastructure. They should be supervised and monitored by a regulatory body. There is also a need for care infrastructure that caters specifically to children with disabilities. Establishing and expanding afterschool programmes for adolescents would not only afford mothers the option of full-time work, but also enhance the skills and abilities of adolescents in communities that are vulnerable to substance abuse. Some mothers said their preference was for the after-school programmes to be held at the school itself, as then they would not have to worry about transporting the child from school to another location. School was also a trusted place where they did not have to worry about their children. Safety and worries around the increase in drugs and drug use in their communities over the last few years was constantly highlighted.

Strengthening laws to safeguard domestic workers

Legal protections for domestic workers, including minimum wages, mandatory paid leave, maternity benefits, contracts, and inclusion in social security schemes, are essential to ensure they receive the same rights and safeguards as formal-sector workers. We recommend that along with advocating for and strengthening such laws for domestic workers, there is also a need for parallel awareness raising on dignified work and a living wage, in order to normalise the idea of considering domestic workers (and any other informal workers that provide services to households and businesses) as those entitled to the same rights and safeguards as those in the formal sector. That a large group contributing to Sri Lanka’s economy and care economy could work all their life (and their work enabling their employers to be a part of the labour force), and be at a “retirement age” with no savings and no retirement benefits is an extremely unjust economic model. 

Expanding school meal programmes

Expanding school meal programmes beyond Grade 5 would improve nutrition, reduce time poverty that burdens working mothers and offer income-generating opportunities for mothers that align with their children’s school day.  School meal programmes also serve as an opportunity for job creation for mothers, offering a steady source of income generation that is compatible with child care. It also offers an opportunity to upscale home-based catering businesses that struggle to compete in saturated markets and have limited profitability. 

Read the full report here.