Read the following passage and answer the questions given below. Some words are highlighted to help you answer some of the questions. New research by ...

Read the following passage and answer the questions given below. Some words are highlighted to help you answer some of the questions. New research by Gates Foundation and International Development Research Center, published on International Women’s Day, has revealed the magnitude of the unpaid care burden that women across the world bear and which has only gotten worse since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. It has been found that women across the world are spending 30 hours per week exclusively on childcare - almost a second fulltime job. In India, both women and men reported an increase in unpaid work at home and a decrease in time spent on paid work, but that extra time translated to more rest for men and more time spent on chores for women. This research report came after two other childcare reports launched earlier in March, both by the World Bank, on the importance of investing in childcare to build human capital, and an update on how laws and regulations (I) women’s economic inclusion, including childcare.This new research was produced in partnership with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) East Africa initiative, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It had a specific focus on supporting women in low- and middleincome countries. At the beginning of the research, we challenged ourselves to think if the childcare issue is a highincome country problem or a global problem. One of the hypotheses I had in my mind was that high-income countries tend to have nuclear families and may find childcare more pronounced as an issue. But what the report shows is that this is a universal problem. Describing the fallout from the closure of childcare centers in low-income settlements, “this has three effects: first, the women who were sending those children to the childcare centers have difficulty in working; second, the women from childcare centers have lost their jobs; and third, childcare burden shifts to adolescent girls. The last effect is particularly worrying as this will have long-term effects for this generation.” The shift of the burden to adolescent girls is worrying as they already shoulder a disproportionate amount of care burden compared to their male counterparts, in many low- and middle-income countries. I feel that a lot of the global conversations on childcare have been focused on high-income countries, but this is equally a priority for low- and middleincome countries. “It is surprising how little attention childcare has received over the years. The pandemic has laid bare the fissures and fractures in our society, which has been organized on the backs of women and women’s unpaid work. With everybody around the world now thinking about how to stimulate the economy, women need to be central to economic recovery plans and progress.
Choose the most suitable word to fill in the blank (I) in the passage: