Each to its Own

Abstract

ABSTRACT newlineThis interpretive study addresses the academic lacuna of understanding the phenomenon of newlinechildcare-work from the perspective of caregivers located within in urban middle-class newlinehouseholds in New Delhi. The inquiry uncovers the intersectional workings of multiple newlineinstitutional hierarchies operational in care-related scenarios. Central questions put forth by newlinethis study revolve around the issues of gendered division of childcare labour, newlineintergenerational changes in care and the effectiveness of existing parental-support policy newlineprovisions. I attempted to address these questions by conducting in-depth interviews with the newlinemultiple individuals directly or vicariously involved caregiving work for children. This newlineapproach of giving primacy to the experiences of caregivers emerged by adopting feminist newlineresearch values and the methodological frameworks of intersectionality and actor-oriented newlineapproach. newlineParticipating households were included from different categories of the middle-classes and newlinethen further classified to represent diverse kinship structures, position in the class hierarchy newlineand patterns of mothers work. It was ensured that narratives collected were of recent newlinechildcare experiences and that participating households included at least one child below the newlineage of 12 years. The thesis begins by explaining the amount and nature of childcare work newlinewithin the household by considering the experiences of the primary caregivers in the initial newlinefew years of a child s life. Various actors involved in childcare are identified and the newlineintersectional power relations amongst them are made visible. The study then analyses the newlineinteraction of the household s model of care with parental-support policies by studying the newlineeveryday experiences in households where both parents are gainfully employed. Experiences newlineof participants working in public, private sectors, engaged in entrepreneurial and informal newlinelabour were included. newlineThrough these narratives of daily experience of care work, I uncover personal and inter- newlinerelational conflicts present in the everyday situations of childcare which represent the many newlineinterfaces institutional norms create. These interfaces represent the varying social capital of newlineinvolved actors, their motivations, their agency and contingencies which all work newlinesimultaneously to construct childcare work. The study further explains the division of the newlineweight of physical, cognitive and emotional childcare work which happens along multiple newlineintersectional axes. Migration also emerges as a significant determinant of systems of newlineivchildcare work. It was found that household s inherited social and cultural capital mediates newlinethe adaptation of institutional values to the urban environment. Lastly, the study critiques newlineexisting parental support policies by contextualising them and illustrating the ideological newlinefragmentation of the state s efforts by utilising examples of the lived reality of childcare newlinework. newlineKeywords: Gender, labour, childcare, parent, grandmother, mother, father, middle-class, newlinepolicy, maternity, interface, conflict, migration newlinev newline