As the leaves change color and winter approaches, each year the smog returns. In Punjab the sky appears grey, eyes are burning and a cough starts in every house. On 8 October the air quality index at Lahore was 171, which is unhealthy for all, and the concentration of fine particles pollution was almost 17 times that of the World Health Organization guideline. The worst months are still to come as the index surpassed 1000 in November 2024 and schools in most parts of Punjab were closed for weeks. The cause has become very familiar: exhaust fumes of cars, industrial pollution, and the burning of crops. Every November we have the same discussion. One thing few people ever mention in the midst of this crisis is what goes on behind closed doors!
The news tells of lost days of the school day and of hospital wards packed with patients. It does not witness the mother waking up at 3 am due to her child wheezing away. It does not watch her repeatedly put her hand on a small forehead to take the temperature. It doesn’t witness her shutting every window, it doesn’t see her keeping old in-laws in, or finding ways to feed, soothe and entertain kids sent home from school. This is not reflected in any budget or damage document. But if it did not exist, the harm would be much more severe.
We’ve assumed in our policies that there will always be someone home to clean up the mess. Care is viewed as free, as if families have all the time and patience in the world. No cooking, cleaning, nursing or looking after the sick is regarded as true work. But when the state does not provide us clean air, the cost remains. It falls on someone and it’s usually a woman. Worldwide, women do more than three-quarters of all unpaid care work, according to the International Labour Organization. In Pakistan, it is not necessary to write a report for anyone who has come from a common family.
Her work is free of charge on paper, but someone is paying for it. She pays with her sleep, her health and her peace of mind. And she pays with her future. Any hour spent nursing a sick child is an hour not spent studying, learning a skill or earning an income. This is “time poverty”, economists say. So to a working mum, the cancellation of a school day during smog is a no-brainer, you take a day off or you leave a sick child at home. Often the women who bear this burden are left in informal, low-paying work, for lack of more accommodating positions.
This does not mean that they are opposing air purification. This, of course, is still the true remedy, which is long overdue. But, until we have a smog free sky, our response to smog needs to cease from being an act of shock absorption for households. As the government has closed schools, it should also ask, “Who will care for these children and what help will the carers need? Employers may provide options for flexible or remote work during smog days. Children and the elderly could have been monitored by the Lady Health Workers and local clinics during the most critical weeks. And let’s for once start valuing unpaid care, the next time crisis hits it is people who hold families together, not assumed.
If a society is not aware of the work that keeps it alive, then it has no notion of being a fair society. Unpaid carers are not the state’s Plan B. Clean air is the right of all people.
