Hidden care burden holding back women, families, says Wescot-Williams

GREAT BAY--Last Thursday and Friday, President of Parliament MP Sarah Wescot-Williams led the St. Maarten parliamentary delegation at a workshop in Grenada hosted by ParlAmericas. The workshop focused on paid and unpaid care work, an area that plays a major role in Caribbean societies but is often overlooked in economic planning.

Reflecting on the workshop, MP Wescot-Williams said the discussions highlighted an important truth: economies are supported not only by formal jobs and businesses, but also by work that often goes unseen and unpaid.

Care work includes raising children, caring for elderly relatives, helping sick family members, supporting persons with disabilities, and managing households. Although this work is essential to daily life and the wider economy, it is often undervalued, underpaid, or not recognized at all across the Caribbean.

The workshop also showed that unpaid care work is carried mostly by women. This has real economic consequences. When women spend large amounts of time caring for family members without pay, they often have less time for formal employment, business opportunities, career growth, pensions, and long-term financial security.

For St. Maarten, these issues are especially serious. Public support services are limited, the cost of living is high, and social support systems are often not strong enough to meet families’ needs. As a result, many families must take on care responsibilities by themselves, and in many cases, that burden falls mainly on women.

“While the concept of unpaid care work may at first seem abstract, its reality is deeply personal. Consider a family caring for an elderly parent living with dementia, in a context where institutional care is unavailable. Household help may be present, but without the specialized training required to manage such a condition. Professional care, where it exists, is often financially out of reach. In these circumstances, the responsibility falls squarely on family members, often adult children who are themselves parents,  working or running small businesses. The physical, emotional, and financial strain that results is immense, and it is precisely this lived reality that underscores why recognizing and supporting care work is so critical.”

MP Wescot-Williams noted that the Democratic Party’s 2024 political manifesto already identified the care economy as an important part of St. Maarten’s future development. The discussions in Grenada, she said, confirmed how urgent and relevant that policy direction remains.

The workshop also looked at the situation of paid care workers, including people working in early childhood education, elder care, disability care, and domestic work. Despite the value of their work, many of these workers continue to face low pay and limited recognition.

This creates a clear contradiction: some of the work that keeps society functioning is still among the least valued economically.

In response, MP Wescot-Williams stressed the need for a different policy approach. She said care must be recognized as a public good, and that this will require investment in childcare, eldercare, and community-based support systems. These investments should not be seen only as social spending, but as necessary support for economic participation and productivity.

The workshop also emphasized the need to make unpaid care work more visible through better data collection, including time-use surveys that show how people actually spend their time caring for others.

It was also noted that conditions for paid care workers must improve. This includes fair wages, more formal employment arrangements, access to social protection, and recognition of care work as skilled labor.

Participants further stressed that care responsibilities must be shared more fairly, within households, across communities, and through public policy, if real progress is to be made on gender equality.

As Caribbean countries deal with aging populations, changing family structures, and growing economic pressure, the need for care services is expected to rise sharply. Without action, the inequalities that already exist are likely to worsen.

Still, the Grenada workshop was described as positive and forward-looking. Parliamentarians from across the region showed a shared commitment to making care a central policy issue.

MP Wescot-Williams said the next step must be turning those discussions into real action.

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