A homemaker, as defined by dictionaries, is a person who manages a household especially as a spouse and parent. Homemakers run various roles and tasks such as taking care of the children, sending them to school, planning the household budget based on the given allowance, cooking, cleaning, shopping, planning timetables, organizing family get-togethers and planning recreation.
Often this work is taken for granted—there is an acceptance that homemaking is the norm, set in history, in culture, through religious practices, in tradition and through patriarchal thinking.
But with the changing demographics in Malaysia, the dependency ratio1 of elderly persons to adults has risen, meaning that an increasing number of older persons are dependent on fewer adults who can look after them. Adults can be caught in a “sandwich bind” between generations—they care for their own children, their parents, parents-in law, and in some cases, grandparents.
