Tiêu đề A Right to Care, A Right to Welfare: KMUT Report.pdf ✅

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A RIGHT TO CARE, A RIGHT TO WELFARE Executive Summary i Since 2020, several states have rolled out unconditional cash transfers to women at breakneck speed in the wake of assembly elections. This phenomenon has generated debates amongst feminists, particularly feminist economists, on the impact of cash transfers on the female labour force participation rate and the high levels of unpaid domestic and care work that Indian women undertake. Meanwhile, experts on welfare characterise this steady expansion of welfare schemes, and direct benefit transfers in particular, as a form of techno- patrimonialism. Yet Tamil Nadu’s Kalaignar Mahalir Urimai Thittam ('KMUT') is the first unconditional cash transfer scheme to articulate the payment as recognition of women’s unpaid domestic and care work, which paves the way for the realisation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5.4. The Laws of Social Reproduction project seeks to intervene in these debates by testing assumptions made by governments, feminists, and welfare experts alike on the desirability of unconditional cash transfers and their impact on women’s empowerment. We undertook a mixed-methods study of the Kalaignar Mahalir Urimai Thittam in September 2024, 12 months after its launch, assessing the impact of the scheme across six key outcome indicators from a gendered perspective. Our study found that the scheme is well targeted and implemented. We found significant improvement in women’s financial inclusion, financial well-being, and access to financial infrastructure alongside modest improvements in food consumption, intra-household bargaining power, and political empowerment. While the scheme did not disincentivise education or entry into paid employment, its impact on female labour force participation, unpaid work burdens, and violence were mixed. We recommend the focus of KMUT be sharpened to build upon its recognition of women’s unpaid work, to realise all aspects of SDG 5.4, and truly achieve women’s empowerment. To achieve this, we suggest changes in programme design alongside the pursuit of a gender transformative welfare regime as well as structural changes that include improving women’s prospects for decent work, strengthening public health infrastructure, regulating microfinance institutions, and addressing the social costs of male alcoholism.