When Climate Shocks Hit Home: Unpaid Care Work, Women’s Double Burden, and the Gap in Indonesia’s Social Protection Response

Abstract

Climate shocks in Indonesia, such as floods, droughts, and extreme weather, have an impact on physical and economic damage, as well as on household life and social reproduction. This paper examines how these climate shocks can increase the burden of unpaid care work and contribute to the double burden on women, as well as the extent to which Indonesia’s social protection system recognizes, reduces, and redistributes this care burden. This study employs a qualitative desk study and critical policy analysis, using feminist political economy (FPE) as an analytical lens and the Recognize, Reduce, and Redistribute (3R) to analyze policy documents related to the Family Hope Program (PKH), the Non-Cash Food Assistance (BPNT)/Food Assistance Program, and the transition from the Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS) to the National Socioeconomic Single Data (DTSEN), supported by an analysis of secondary literature. The analysis shows that disruptions to access to water, and potentially to food and health care, can increase caregiving needs, creating layered double burdens, while women also demonstrate adaptive agency rather than merely passive dependence. Recognition of care work in social protection is uneven: PKH recognizes groups in need of care, such as pregnant women, the elderly, and people with disabilities, without explicitly recognizing who provides that care, while the BPNT’s targeting criteria do not yet acknowledge care needs. Both programs aim to reduce the material burden but the policies analyzed do not include measures designed to reduce the time or intensity of care work itself, and no explicit mechanism for redistributing care responsibilities outside the household was identified within the policy documents analyzed. Although DTSEN includes broader socioeconomic indicators, unpaid care work has not been identified as an explicit dimension in the targeting aspects analyzed. This paper points to the need for greater visibility of care responsibilities in the design of social protection and social data systems that accommodate vulnerabilities arising from or exacerbated by climate shocks.