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Tuesday, December 31, 2019 / 11:23 AM / by Kristalina Georgieva, Cristian Alonso, Era Dabla-Norris and Kalpana Kochlar, IMFBlog / Header Image Credit: International Monetary Fund (IMF)
As much as half of the
world's work is unpaid. And most of it is done by women.
This imbalance not only robs women of economic opportunities. It is also
costly to society in the form of lower productivity and forgone economic
growth. It follows that a fairer allocation of unpaid work would not only
benefit women, but would also lead to more efficient work forces and stronger
economies.
For these reasons, reducing gender imbalances in unpaid work is part of
the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Examples of unpaid work include cooking, cleaning, fetching food or water,
and caring for children and the elderly. These tasks are not counted as
part of economic activity because they are difficult to measure based on values
in the marketplace. Yet their economic value is substantial, with estimates
ranging from 10 to 60 percent of GDP.
In our new study, we find that unpaid work declines as
economic development increases particularly because there is less time spent on
domestic chores. Social institutions and values can constrain the
redistribution of unpaid work by preventing men from sharing the burden at
home.
Overworked and underpaid
It's no secret that women disproportionately shoulder the burden of
unpaid work. Less well understood is just how many more unpaid hours women put
in than men on a given day. Women do 4.4 hours of unpaid work on average around
the world and men only 1.7 hours.
There are large differences across countries.
In Norway, the gap is small, with women doing 3.7 hours of unpaid work,
while men contribute 3. On the other extreme, in Egypt, women do 5.4 hours per
day of unpaid work and men only 35 minutes. In the US, women do 3.8 hours of unpaid
work and men do 2.4 hours.
By not fully engaging women, the economy is misallocating resources,
having women do low-productivity tasks at home instead of taking advantage of
their full potential in the marketplace. It also misses exploiting the
complementarity between women and men in the workplace. The result is lower
productivity and economic growth. This gender gap in unpaid work is not just
unfair. It is clearly inefficient.
Certainly, some unpaid work is done entirely by choice and the value to
society of raising children for societies cannot be disputed. But more than 80
percent of unpaid work hours are devoted to domestic chores aside from child
and elder care.
Too often women end up shouldering those domestic chores because of
constraints imposed by cultural norms, lack of public services and
infrastructure, or absence of family-friendly policies.
Women may also choose to stay at home or work only part-time if the wage
in the market is too low and does not represent equal pay for equal work.
Engines of liberation
Policies can help reduce and redistribute unpaid
work. In developing economies, measures to improve water supply,
sanitation, electricity, and transportation are critical to free women from
low-productivity tasks.
UNICEF estimates that women spend 200
million hours per day worldwide simply fetching water. In India, women spend more than an hour every
day collecting firewood. Better access to electricity and water and less
expensive appliances helped boost female labor force participation in Mexico and Brazil. Expanding internet
access to the entire population can help women take advantage of the gig
economy and flexible work arrangements.
Governments need to ensure access to education and health care for
women. Without proper human capital, women's possibilities in the labor market
are very limited. According to UNESCO, 130 million school-age
girls are not in school. It is not only a matter of providing the services, but
also guaranteeing their use.
Many families in Pakistan choose not to
send girls to school because of security concerns. Enshrining women's rights in
law could help to reshape social institutions and values that prevent access to
education and healthcare.
Efficient and flexible labor markets help redistribute unpaid work.
Active labor market policies, like those in Switzerland, can facilitate job
matching. We find that flexible work arrangements are associated with less
female unpaid work and make for a better work-life balance.
All in the family
Family-friendly policies also help. Many Nordic countries invest heavily
in early childhood education and care, which allows for high enrollment and
fosters women's ability to return to work after giving birth.
Greater parity in maternal and parental leave policies can raise female
labor force participation by smoothing women's return to work and engaging
fathers in care activities early on. Iceland's parental leave policy is a good
example: it sets the length of leave at nine months and earmarks three for each
parent.
Reducing and redistributing unpaid work is an economic imperative.
Governments must take decisive actions, and the private sector must join in to
seize on the large potential gains.
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