Sri Lanka is often perceived as an exemplary country where social welfare has been an integral component of state policy since its independence in 1948. Government provision of education and healthcare is free. There is no overt gendered discrimination for girls and boys to enter the schooling system, or for women and men to access health care.
The exception to this ‘universal’ social welfare roll out was, of course, the period of the 30-year ethnic conflict and war during which the greatly reduced delivery of state social welfare in pockets of the war zone partially outside government control.
In this seminar, Dr. Sepali Kottegoda briefly examines the discourse on social reproduction in the formulation of social protection policies in Sri Lanka. How does the state define the family, household, and women in its programmes that aim at poverty alleviation, the welfare of household members with disabilities, and, the elderly? She shares some of the findings from research on unpaid care work, the gender pay gap, and some aspects of women’s responses to the recently implemented poverty alleviation programme, drawing from debates on inclusion and exclusion of gender in the formulation of state programmes in Sri Lanka.
About the Speaker
Dr. Sepali Kottegoda is a founder member of the Women and Media Collective. She is currently Director Programmes, Gender and Political Economy, and Media. Dr. Kottegoda received her M.Phil (1984) and D.Phil (1990) in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK. She received her BA (Hons) (1980) in English Literature from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.
Dr. Kottegoda is a researcher and a Visiting Lecturer at the Post Graduate Programme in Gender and Women’s Studies, Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Colombo. She has extensive research publications including in the areas of Unpaid Care Work, Gender Pay Gap, Women and Poverty, Women’s Overseas Labour Migration, Women in the Informal Sector, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. She was a member of the National Committee on Women, Sri Lanka and was on the Board of South Asia Women’s Fund as well as of Women’s Fund Asia. Dr. Kottegoda is a Member of the Social Scientists Association, Sri Lanka and a member of the Board of Directors of the Women’ Development Centre, Kandy and, of Da Bindu
Read more of our work on unpaid care work in Sri Lanka: