'Radical change' needed on unpaid care work, report finds

With women still bearing the burden of unpaid domestic work around the world, a new report is calling for a “radical” change of laws, policies and social attitudes to address the imbalance.

The extra time women spend on unpaid work is undermining progress on gender equality, the report’s coordinators told Devex, laying out a series of recommendations for reform.

Sustainable Development Goal 5 calls for gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls by 2030 — but significant imbalances still exist at work and in the home, holding back economic growth and global development.

On average, women spend three times longer than men every day caring for their children and performing household chores — often in addition to paid work — according to UN Women. This figure can be more than double in low-income countries, with the extra time spent on care work exacerbating gender inequality.

Surveys conducted for the report — “State of the World’s Fathers” — which was released by campaign group MenCare ahead of Father’s Day on June 16, suggest that this is perceived as harming men and women alike, especially when it comes to parenthood.

It builds on a previous version of the report released in 2015.

“Radical, transformational change in the division of unpaid care must be a global goal. Anything less is inequality,” said Gary Barker, chief executive director of Promundo, a leading organization working on engaging men and boys in gender equality efforts, and a coordinator of the MenCare campaign.

Barker described the report as a “wake up call” for the international community on the lack of progress made towards the equal sharing of unpaid care work between men and women. “Despite a lot of noise being created about this hot topic ... we’ve actually barely pushed the needle,” he said.

“Not surprisingly, it’s the wealthiest countries which are more equitable, but they can offer more flexible options of support,” he explained. “It’s in the poorest households, where men and women struggle to make ends meet, where this affects how much men can participate in care and household tasks.”

Devex spoke to the researchers behind the report to find out more.

A reinforcing cycle

On average, women in developing countries shoulder the greatest burden of unpaid work. In sub-Saharan Africa, women spend three times longer on household chores and caregiving, while the figure is 3.3 times in Latin America, 4.5 times in the Middle East and North Africa, and 6.5 times in South Asia, according to figures from UN Women and Dalberg Development Advisors. Those numbers compare to an average of 2.2 in wealthier nations.

This unequal split is linked to various factors — including social norms; unequal pay and discrimination in the workplace; and laws and policies that make it difficult for women to work.  These factors conspire to reinforce the traditional notion that caregiving is “women’s work,” according to the MenCare report.

Barker described how traditional norms have created a “perverse reinforcing cycle” whereby — because men are generally paid more than women and because jobs, especially in low-income countries, tend to be scarce — men’s careers are prioritized over women’s by both sexes, particularly in situations of poverty.

Yet the extra time women spend on unpaid work perpetuates the situation by holding back their educational and professional development. This, in turn, means that women remain more reliant on family members, often men, for their livelihood — and the cycle continues.

Men suffer too

Women are not the only ones who suffer as a result of these socio-economic and political structures. More than half of men surveyed by MenCare in the Middle East and North Africa said they spend too little time with their children due to work constraints.

“The pressure to provide can be a source of stress on men,” said Barker. He added that being the designated “breadwinner” can also be an obstacle to happy and close relationships, since couples report better intimate lives when household decision-making and duties are more equally shared.

Many men and women realize this contradiction but are unable to change it. “Because of the structural and economic reality of lives for many households it has become a really difficult cycle to break out of,” Barker explained.

In addition, a fairer distribution of unpaid work can have huge economic benefits, since women are freed up to participate in the job market. A new International Labor Organization report estimates that reducing the gap in labor participation rates between men and women by 25 percent could add $5.8 trillion dollars to the global economy — most of all in poorer countries, supporting their development.

Fatherhood is an opportunity for change

Nikki van der Gaag, director of women's rights and gender justice at Oxfam GB, who helped write the report, said that fatherhood offers an ideal opportunity for men to question accepted definitions of masculinity. From there, advocacy groups can work to engage them in gender equality efforts.

“It is clear from research that when a man becomes a father he either becomes more traditional as he has to go out to work to earn more money — or it makes him think more about what it means to be a man. That’s where the opportunity lies,” she said.

Since the first report was published in 2015, momentum has been building, van der Gaag said.  For example, the SDGs include a target that calls on countries to “recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies” and also to promote “shared responsibility within the household.”

New paternity and parental leave policies have also been introduced in some countries in recent years, she said.

Wessel van den Berg, a unit manager at Sonke Gender Justice and co-coordinator of MenCare, added that the participation of fathers in household work — which can be encouraged through an “equal, non-transferable parental leave framework” — reduces government expenditure on social welfare in the long term.

However, the fact that the gap in domestic work is yet to be closed in any country speaks to how difficult the task is, van der Gaag said.

The time to act is now

For Barker, action to get men to step up and take on 50 percent of domestic work and caregiving is especially important at a time when women’s rights are experiencing a “backlash,” as demonstrated by the limiting of funding for women’s reproductive health services by the United States.

“In a global political climate that is experiencing conservative backlash around sexual and reproductive rights and government support services, the time for action is now,” he said.

The MenCare report spells out an action plan that includes setting international and national goals, strategies, indicators and budget commitments around equality between men and women in unpaid care work, as well as systematic measurement of how much time men and women spend on such work, since data is often lacking.

It also calls for men and children to be taught to value and participate in care work; and for governments to develop policies and programs which support unpaid as well as paid work, including equal and paid parental leave for both parents.

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