The same is true in India. “No matter what you do, family—taking care of children or elderly relatives—is a woman's primary responsibility,” says Anjali Hazarika. “She doesn't get exempted from family responsibilities just because she is a full-time working career person. There is an understanding with the family—sometimes explicit, sometimes unarticulated—that if you want to go outside the home to work, you will not neglect your family. Be ready for 24/7 and not only 9 to 5 five days a week. This can place additional demands on her, and that can lead to stress.”
The close-knit nature of extended families in the BRIC countries and the UAE envelops its members in a circle of care. As daughters mature, its warm embrace provides support, and a source of strength. In interview after interview, high-achieving women affirmed that they couldn't have reached their level of professional success had it not been for their mother or father or an aunt or uncle pointing the way, encouraging their development and boosting them over the rough patches. In return, however, daughters are expected to shoulder their own share of family obligations, and that duty can undermine a career in surprising ways.
ELDER CARE: A TICKING TIME BOMB
When their mother fell seriously ill, Vasanti, an executive in the financial sector, and her sister, an equally highly qualified professional, were both working in the United States. “My sister quit her job and moved back to India with her family because one of us had to be there,” says Vasanti. “Before that, we took turns going back and forth because my parents refused to move to the U.S. to live with either my sister or me. And the mere mention of the words ‘nursing home’ threw things into chaos. It was like we were the meanest daughters on the planet” for even thinking it. Like her sister, Vasanti also left her job to help tend to her mother. When talking about trying to balance elder care duties with a demanding career, she says, “It's a huge struggle.”
The pull that does loom large in the lives of many women in emerging markets is elder care. Although many BRIC and UAE women in our survey did not have children, the vast majority—81 percent—care for their parents or aging relatives. Their responsibilities consume anywhere from eight hours a week in the UAE to a draining fourteen hours a week—that's two hours every day—in India. In the United States, in contrast, professional women dedicate about five hours a week to elder care.1 Our study found overall consensus among adult children in BRIC and UAE that they would change their lives to take care of their parents and that, in fact, the obligation toward parents loomed even more important than that toward one's children. As Leila Hoteit explains, “It's seen that parents take care of you all their adult life, so when it's your time to pay back, you do it wholeheartedly.”
Daughterly guilt is pervasive among professional women throughout emerging economies. It's especially strong in India, China, and the UAE, where despite massive demographic shifts and economic development, the traditional concept of filial piety remains powerful. In India and China, in fact, daughterly guilt exceeds maternal guilt among our survey participants (see figure 2-2).
FIGURE 2-2
Percentage of women who express daughterly guilt
Daughterly guilt, like maternal guilt, finds fertile ground in the clash between tradition and modernity. May al-Dabbagh describes the family constellation in the UAE and the Gulf region: “In the past, people lived in extended families in a Freej—like a compound. Individuals in those families played different roles, so an aunt could take care of a young child, even if it wasn't her own daughter or son, and a cousin could take care of an elderly person. In terms of shared resources, this was very possible.” Similar support networks, held together by duty and propinquity, were typical throughout the BRICs, too. Today, though, because of urbanization and the need to relocate for job opportunities, families are scattering to different cities and even different countries. The falling birthrate among educated women has left their adult children, now modern career women, with few siblings to share the responsibility. Although China's “one child” policy, launched in 1979, may give a grandchild four grandparents, it burdens the lone adult daughter with the care of her own parents and those of her in-laws. The circle of care has shrunk significantly throughout emerging economies, often leaving one woman standing alone in the spotlight.
“My brother has a family, and I'm responsible for our parents. I have always taken care of my parents,” says Karine Kocharyan, a Russian division controller for a multinational engineering corporation. “My responsibility is every day, every evening. I'm responsible, 100 percent, and I value this connection. That's our way of life.”
Kocharyan's mother lives with her. Again, this is typical of many women in emerging markets: our data reveal that more than half of career women in China and India have an elderly parent or in-law living with them. In the UAE and Brazil, the figure is nearly one in three, and in Russia, it's one of four. Our survey respondents accompany the elders to medical appointments, cook meals for them, and arrange transportation.
The alternatives that exist for child care, such as a nanny or day care, are rarely available for elder care. There are some glimmers of change; old age homes for the affluent are beginning to crop up in India and China.2 Still, most of the time, options for delegating or outsourcing elder care don't exist, are socially unacceptable, or both. Although more than half of our respondents in Brazil, India, and China would consider using hired help for their parents or in-laws, placing them in a full-time care facility—the choice of more than half of adult children in the United States—is anathema in emerging markets.
When daughters aren't physically providing for their parents and in-laws, they're supporting them financially. More than half of women in China, India, Russia, and the UAE give monetary assistance; in Brazil, the figure is 33 percent. Financial aid from adult children is vital in countries where government benefits for the elderly are weak or nonexistent. In Russia, for example, pensions average a paltry 2,000–4,000 rubles (less than $100) a month—less than 10 percent of the per capita income in 2009.3 India entirely lacks a social security system that ensures income for the elderly, so informal family support is often their primary recourse. Our data show that the amount of money adult daughters contribute is significant: 18–23 percent of their annual income.
For women in emerging markets, elder care, far more than child care, has a significant potential to limit their professional ambitions or stall a high-flying career. Consider the question of mobility. “If a great job opportunity comes up that involves moving to a different city, even if the husband and wife agree from a career point of view, the question is what happens to the parents,” notes Murali Kuppuswamy, senior human resources manager, drilling and production, GE Oil & Gas. “Child care is much easier. You can hire nannies.”
Furthermore, women tend to off-ramp for child care at the time when their career trajectory has just taken off and has time to recover. In contrast, elder care responsibilities often hit at the peak of their profession, striking a blow to their career just as they are reaching the top.
The elder care burden on society in general and women in particular is a ticking time bomb. Although elders today represent a net benefit to the career woman in BRIC and the UAE, it is clear from the demographic projections that the situation is poised to shift dramatically in the near future. As a result of better health care and increased life expectancies, demographic projections for BRIC and the UAE point to a huge leap in the percentage of the population over sixty. Even in India's relatively youthful population, individuals over sixty are expected to constitute 20 percent of the population by 2050.4 China's demographic outlook is even more dire: thanks to the double whammy of the one-child policy and rising longevity, by 2035 there will be two Chinese elders
