Rural-Urban Differences in Unpaid Care Work: A Systematic Review

This systematic review aims to summarise the evidence of differences in unpaid care work in rural and urban areas. The systematic review is based on articles dealing with any category of unpaid care work in rural and urban areas. The reviewers used Web of Science and Scopus databases for identifying studies. Making use of the resource-based approach and the gender-centred approach, we identify five themes. (i) The caregiving intensity of women is greater than that of men, (ii) Coresidence and the relationship between caregivers and care recipients, (iii) Education, income, paid work, and unpaid care work, (iv) Bargaining power and gender display, and (v) Rural-urban differences in unpaid care work. More studies show that rural women contribute more to unpaid care work than urban women. It is also observed that the gender-centred approach better explains the gender gap in unpaid care work than the resource-based approach.