Home based Jobs are Undervalued in Nepalese Society! Here are 5 reasons why
This article is for all those who have either done home based jobs and have experienced the society undervalue your work or have seen someone who works from home being undervalued. If you are someone who doesn’t think that home-based jobs are actually Jobs then this article might just be an eye-opener for you as well.
At one point in our life, a lot of us have seen people looking at people who work from home with disdain or even have done it ourselves. This is a rather common thing in our society which is slowly changing nowadays but still, there is a lot of scrutiny towards those people who work from home. Either people don’t believe that they work or think that they don’t earn enough. Have you ever wondered why these discriminations exist between work though?
There are a few jobs that are as undermined as Home based jobs in our Nepalese society and we all know the reason for a few of them. The garbage collectors are looked at with disdain because of the filth they work in despite them being an important part of our society, the farmers are thought of as illiterate and labor workers are thought of as all muscle and no brain in our society. We know that this is not true but still we do look at them the way that we do. But these are the jobs that are looked down because for a clear reason.
Why do people look down on home based jobs then?
Reason 1: The common belief that home-based jobs don’t earn much
This is a weird belief that is widely in people’s heads. The belief that home-based jobs don’t earn much. Let’s be honest, how many of you think that working from home actually earns you a good amount of money? The chances are very high that you think that and among those who do think that you most likely have a friend who earns good or is in the business itself.
To be fair it is not like this view towards home based jobs doesn’t have any base. There are a few jobs that don’t really earn much. Jobs like knitting and clothes repair don’t warm much and they are just side jobs to kill boredom. But think of all those handy craftsmen.
They are doing fairly well and handicraft is a home-based job. What about all those artists who sell their every piece in the thousands? They earn more than an average person does. With that being said we have to understand that not all home-based jobs pay equally but a lot of them do pay more than enough to pay the bills and we have to understand the range of jobs that are included in this category which brings us to our second reason.
Reason 2: The lack of knowledge on the range of jobs.
As mentioned earlier people don’t know the range of jobs included in Home based Jobs. For most people, the jobs included in this category are just small handicrafts with the exception of the commonly known bronze and metal sculpting of the deities.
Most Nepalese don’t understand that most White-collar jobs that people do in this age are technically home-based jobs as well. All they need is a computer and a decent internet connection and a lot of the jobs that people go to the office can be done at home. In the lockdown, they have been done work from home as well.
The jobs in this category can range from the low paying handicraft to the high paying accounting service as well. Almost all the jobs related to arts, literature, and research are home-based jobs as well. This includes Graphic designing, painting and sketching, coursebook writing/reviewing, content writing, news research, scientific database management, and programming. These are the jobs that people go to the office to work for and they are well-paying jobs as well.
The issue is that either most Nepali people don’t think of these jobs as home based jobs or don’t think that they pay enough when it is not really based on any evidence.
Reason 3: People who work from home are lazy
Again we can understand the reason behind this thought as well and this reasoning does have some base. It is natural and human nature to stay in bed for an extra hour when you are at home. It is natural for us to be/feel lazy when we are at home. Where do people who have home-based jobs work? Yes, it is from home. With this linking, these two are not so hard.
The only issue is that the ones who think this either don’t know that those who work from home almost always have to meet deadlines for their work or certain login hours to cover during their shifts. So due to this, they can’t really be lazy for the most part. This logic applies to almost every home-based worker. The only exception is if you are an occasional freelancer and even they have deadlines. The only reason they can afford to be lazy is that they don’t have any work to do at the moment.
Thing is not a lot of people know what you do at home and it is natural to assume in our stereotypical Nepalese society that if you don’t go out to work then either you don’t work or don’t do enough work to have a need to go outside which is completely wrong.
Reason 4: People grew up where home based jobs are undervalued.
This is not to say that everyone doesn’t understand and a lot of them are actually rather chill and have a feeling of “if you are doing good then you do you, doesn’t matter if you never come out of your room or are never in your room” but there are a lot of Nepalese who don’t understand the new jobs. It is not completely their fault either.
They were raised in a society where people had to go out to work since in the olden times there was no good earning work at home and they have passed down this thought to their kids as well. This is also one of the main reasons why most people don’t want a home-based job despite knowing that it pays fairly well.
This leads to a chain reaction where who from the time and place where home-based jobs don’t make much money or are not relevant are teaching their kids the same and don’t understand the change of time. This is fine but it does create an environment where people who work do home-based jobs feel pressured and misunderstood.
Reason 5: Most of the people who undervalue home based jobs don’t think of them as jobs at all
This is the bane of all the things mentioned so far and the core as well. All the issues arise from their belief that home-based jobs are not “actual jobs”. This has issues in many forms with the first one being “what qualifies as an actual job?” and so much more. Those who undervalue home-based jobs don’t think that they qualify as jobs as in our common belief to be a job, one has to go out and either have an office or job station and then have some form of job uniform be it laboring one or a white-collar one.
That is just how our society was just around a decade ago and it is hard to change this view so easily. If you are someone who works from home and asks anyone why they don’t think that home-based jobs are good, you can very well expect an answer that says that home-based jobs are just earning a bit of money from your hobbies.
Technically they are true as most home-based jobs are hobbies that are turned into jobs but a job is still a job. A job is defined as a piece of regular work that is paid with either cash or benefits so regardless of what they say, a job is a job.
With that being said due to the onset of the pandemic a lot of people have changed their views about home-based jobs and it is good to see their perspectives changing but if you are someone in the field of any home based job and is facing scrutiny, just ignore them and filter them out. Regardless of what they say, money is money and what you are doing does matter.
If you want to know what job qualifies as a white-collar job and a blue-collar job why don’t you check out our article on “Why Do Most Nepalese Have Blue-Collar Jobs over White-Collar Jobs?” and if you want to start a business you can check this out as well “5 Profitable Business That You Can Start with 1 Lakh“
