Valuing the Work of Women - A WOW! e-Brief

 

WOMEN'S WORK: AN OVERVIEW

By Kylie McBride, WOW! summer intern

Photographs by Natalie Elwell/World Neighbors

The U.S. version of Labor Day began in 1882 and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. Other countries celebrate their own form of Labor Day, usually on May 1, to recognize the contributions of their own workers. The activities in each participating country vary slightly, from parades and speeches to travel and just plain relaxation, but each country faces the same underlying dilemma—that a large portion of the work of women remains undervalued and unrecognized. Women earn approximately 10 percent of the world’s total income, but they are responsible for up to 60 percent of the work performed in some areas.

 

According to the United Nations (UN) System of National Accounts, our economic system is based on the notion that the best way to measure the value of work is through the money that is paid for it. The problem with valuing work solely through monetary transactions is that a large segment of the population, primarily women, receives no pay for a large portion of the work they perform.

 

Women often carry a triple burden, having the primary responsibility of raising children and performing household chores while at the same time earning an income for the family. Unpaid labor undoubtedly contributes to the low economic status of women worldwide. According to the UN, of the world’s 1.3 billion people living in poverty, approximately 70 percent are women.

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Whether they are working in industrialized nations or developing countries, in rural or urban settings, women generally work more hours than do men. According to Oxfam, women average around 60 to 90 working hours per week, and time-use surveys demonstrate that in many developing countries, the number of hours women work exceeds those of men by a wide margin.

 

In many developing countries women are responsible for agricultural production and market work as well as unpaid non-market work, which ranges from caring for children, the sick and the elderly to domestic chores and food production for families. At least half of women’s total work time is spent on these unpaid duties. In rural Nepal, for example, men spend 8 hours each day on market work and only 2 hours on home production whereas women spend 7.4 hours on market work and 5 hours on home production. Additionally, women overlap many of their activities, like watching children while working in the home or in the fields. In industrialized nations, the division of household labor follows a similar pattern, although gender differences in the overall work pattern are less severe than in developing countries.

Another part of the equation concerns pay. In both industrialized and developing nations, when women work outside the home, they usually earn much less than do men. According to UNICEF, in Middle Eastern and North African countries women’s wages are around 30 percent of men’s, 40 percent in Latin America and South Asia, 50 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, and around 60 to 70 percent in East Asia and industrialized countries.

One reason for the large gender discrepancies in earnings is that in developing regions, women are primarily employed in the informal sector of the economy, that is to say they work in jobs that are unregulated by the government. Examples of the work performed by women in this type of work vary from garment sewing and factory work to domestic service. Women working in the informal sector often must deal with difficult working conditions, including long working hours, job insecurity and the lack of benefits.

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In addition, women employed in the informal sector of the economy are largely responsible for small-scale agriculture production. Rural women are the main producers of staple crops like maize and contribute even more to the production of secondary crops, such as legumes and vegetables. These vegetables, which are often grown in home gardens, provide essential nutrients and can often be the only source of food during times of food shortage. Rural women are assuming greater roles in agricultural production, yet their contributions remain largely overlooked in development plans. Because many small farms are organized on a family level, women play a major role in planting, harvesting and marketing without remuneration. When the agricultural work is combined with domestic obligations, rural women work as much as 18 hours each day.

 

Furthermore, because women remain largely unpaid for their domestic services, their household labor remains invisible in national economies. This adds to the perception that women are not economically productive and therefore should not receive equal social entitlements, such as equal access to political power, equal wages or pensions. To illustrate, when girls reach adolescence they are usually expected to spend more time on domestic chores, while boys will spend more time on farm or wage work. By the time girls and boys reach adulthood, women usually work longer hours, earn less money and have less formal job experience than men.  Gender inequalities in employment and wages also have implications for future generations—if parents view daughters as less likely to earn wages, then they are less likely to invest in their daughters’ education.

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A WOW! e-Brief

Work of Women @ World Neighbors

August 2007

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