The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has published a study titled 'Decent Work Status of the Care Workers: A Rapid Assessment' recently that looks at the global demand for care-giving services till 2035. Its findings are very interesting for Bangladesh. According to ILO, the country has the potential to create around 7.0 million new jobs in the care-giving service sector.
Over the course of the last decade several private sector service companies have grown that cater to this largely untapped market, but the services they provide are geared towards the more affluent segments of society. While Bangladesh still has a demographic dividend of millions of young people, there is a sizeable number of elderly people in the country - both in urban and rural areas, for whom care-giving is becoming increasingly difficult. Difficult because with more households having both husband and wife working full time either in offices or engaged in other occupations, the elderly are increasingly left to fend for themselves.
Sadly, there aren't enough care-givers for the millions of people who need specialised care and the services that are available today are not only severely limited but also there is a huge cost factor involved. It is not only the elderly who are in need of care, but very young children often bereft of parental care also need such attention because again, parents are busy otherwise. The fast paced life that has effectively destroyed the traditional family unit in urban households calls for serious investments into "care policies like childcare and long-term care and proper training" that can help generate significant employment for the otherwise unemployed segments of the population.
Those people who are engaged as caregivers and interviewed by the ILO, state that 48.6 per cent of workers are employed on temporary basis while only about 38.2 per cent have fulltime employment. Those figures are not exactly encouraging. Obviously, the sector needs to be recognised as one with serious potential for employing millions of people. Hence, it also needs to have proper guidelines that will safeguard the basic rights of individual caregivers who are employed by the various institutions / companies / organisations - as caregivers. Even amongst the elite agencies, there have been allegations of wilful hiring-and-firing. All this is quite natural because this is a nascent sector in the country that has yet to gain any sort of public recognition.
In fact, one of the reasons why such services have not blossomed even in the private sector is due to the prevalent mindset that revolves around hiring nurses. Now, the first preference for a trained nurse would be to work in a formal place of employment like hospital or private clinic. In the absence of formal working conditions where pay, bonuses, other fringe benefits are not at all guaranteed and where there is neither work safety nor job security, there cannot be proliferation of services. Again, there is the perception of safety and security at the client's end. Without having any way to check backgrounds of potential caregivers, why would parents of young children or adults with elderly dependants trust an outsider into their homes to look after their loved ones?
These are all very pertinent questions. While the report points out the potential for this market to employ millions of people, it also pinpoints the loopholes in policy. Altering people's perception requires long-term advocacy to change attitudes. Similarly, advocacy programme has to be launched for recognising that caregivers need an overarching policy to protect their right to safe working conditions where they will not be mistreated and where employers are bound to pay for services rendered.
Policymakers here must recognise that this market of 7.0 million or so can be a game changer for a country with such a massive level of unemployed youth. This requires careful thinking into what sort of skill sets have to be given to new caregivers. Could a diploma course be designed to train a new labour force which is specifically trained to provide the services required by young children and the elderly?
Looking beyond the domestic market, there exists a massive global market for professional caregivers in the Western hemisphere. In the Far East, Japan is already grappling with a fast ageing population and the country actually changed its immigration laws to allow some categories of skilled migration in to the country. The UK, for instance, has fast-tracked residency permits to allow for nurses and paramedics interested to work with the elderly in health institutions. Several Asian countries including India are taking full advantage of this situation. The possibilities are there. The data support that if this sector was given proper policy support, it could help reduce the unemployment situation. But there has to be a change in perception amongst those who frame policies and those who allocate financial resources for the health sector.
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