6.3 METHODOLOGY FOR COUNTING UNPAID CARE WORK TIME
6.3.4 Care activities included
Information was obtained for a variety of care activities through the stylized questions in the care survey. In this section detail is provided on which activities were counted. This is a core part of the thesis: to make transparent the logic used and to make more visible the methodological problems in measuring unpaid care work. The following information was obtained and used in the estimation of time.
• Activities undertaken for the ill person only – for example, preparing special food for the ill person and no-one else.
• Information on time spent preparing special food and drink for the ill person, and time taken to help him/her eat and drink.
• Time spent washing linen in the Shibe household where the ill person and his wife shared a sleeping space and the wife washed the bed linen everyday, it seems because he sweated profusely.
Information for some care activities was not obtained across study households, since they were not asked about as part of the stylized questions. However field researchers did record some additional time-use information on other care activities provided by caregivers. These activities are listed below and this time has been counted:
• Time taken to clean the ill person once he/she soiled him/herself.
• Time taken to wake up the ill person and sit him/her up in order to give him/her food, drink or medication.
• Time taken to take the washing off the line, fence, rocks or grass where it was put to dry.
• Time taken to buy care items (e.g. blankets, bedpans) for the ill person, that is, the time taken to get to and from the shops, and the time to buy the item, although the trip to and from the shops may have also been for the purpose of purchasing other items not related to care provision.
• Time spent preparing for a trip to a health facility with the ill person.
The following time information was not counted as part of the time spent on unpaid care activities by household caregivers:
• Time spent buying care items or other items for the ill person by a non-household member.
• Time spent buying items that were bought many years ago but were used at the time of the study for care purposes, such as a bucket or bedpan, since this care time was spent prior to the illness period.
• Time spent buying items, both for the ill person and for other household members (such as washing powder), although the ill person consumed these items. While it is likely that more washing powder had to be purchased for the care of the ill person after they became ill than before, it is extremely difficult to isolate this additional time from the time spent buying washing powder for all household members.
• Time spent preparing food or drink for both the ill person and other household members.
These activities would have been undertaken for the ill person before they became ill, and so, strictly speaking are not illness-related care activities.
• Time spent keeping the ill person company and keeping an eye on them. This activity occurred in most of the study households to greater or lesser degrees and while respondents gave estimations of how long this took, these were regarded as unreliable. Respondents indicated that it was difficult to put a time to this kind of care activity as it was done in between and at the same time as other activities. In the Mncube household, for instance, the caregiver described time spent keeping the ill person company as follows: “…it is not easy to count because we spend the whole day in the house; friends come and sit for hours”. Nevertheless, an analysis of simultaneous time- use for activities such as this was undertaken on the 24-hour time diaries, and is documented in section 6.3.6.
• Time spent caring if someone provided care only in exceptional circumstances, where it is very difficult to estimate frequency. For example, in the Ngidi household, Thenjiwe, the
caregiver, always gave medication to her mother, but she rarely gave it to her aunt.
• The counting of time was done separately for household and non-household members who provided care. This was done in order to distinguish between care provided by family members and ‘community care’. Time spent on care activities by non-household members was not counted as part of household care time. In the Mngadi household, one of the main caregivers, Gladys, came from Johannesburg to look after her ill cousin. Gladys was defined as a household member because she lived in the household for the duration of the illness period. In the Mbongeni household care was provided mainly by the ill person’s mother, Ayanda, but at times assistance was received from an aunt who visited for two weeks and from a neighbour. Both the aunt and the neighbour were defined as non-household members because they did not live in the
household for the duration of the illness period.