Free labour great disadvantage to women – Report
Women and girls in informal settlements spend 11 hours a day providing free labour that encompasses domestic duties and care work that is not considered for pay, a new report indicates.
In contrast, men in similar circumstances spend at least three hours doing unpaid domestic duties and other chores.
The report by Oxfam; Gendered Patterns of Unpaid Care and Domestic Work (UCDW) in the Urban Informal Settlements of Nairobi, Kenya, highlights the findings from a household survey carried out in informal settlements in the capital city in 2019.
It shows that women spend five hours on primary care, which include direct care such as caring for a child, an invalid and elderly people, and domestic work including washing, cleaning and cooking. Men only spend one hour on the same.
Suffer injuries
When it comes to any care, which includes the primary care and other accompanying duties, the time spent increases to 11.1 hours for women, and 2.8 hours for men.
The hours also change in relation to infrastructure, equipment and access to care services, with respondents with more access to these systems spending fewer hours on unpaid care.
Conversely, men spend more time- almost double- at paid work at 10.5 hours against the 5.3 hours spent by women, every day.
This, according to the report, puts women at a disadvantage not only in accessing, but also benefiting from opportunities to improve their lives and that of the larger society.
“We need to make sure we level the playground for both men and women, but for women in particular because they start from a disadvantage,” said Prof Tabitha Kiriti at the launch of the report in Nairobi last Thursday.
Such disparity means women spend less hours on paid work, meaning they will receive less income even when the market variables remain the same.
Another effect of this disparity is that women suffer adverse consequences on their physical and mental health.
Over 55 per cent of female respondents say they had suffered “from an injury, illness, disability or other physical or mental harm due to their unpaid care or domestic tasks in the last 12 months,” the report said.
Out of this, 22 per cent suffered a serious or incapacitating injury as a result of their UCDW responsibilities.
Prepare meals
The statistics, the report shows, are based on the perceived beliefs and social norms surrounding domestic work. Seventy three per cent of women in the survey said they are satisfied with the current status of unpaid work, a belief attributed to their upbringing where they saw it as a woman’s work.
Most men in the report indicate they were more likely to be taught how to perform the unpaid domestic work than to have observed a man undertake the same work while growing up.
Of this number, 71 per cent said they had never seen another man wash clothes, 62 per cent have never seen another man clean the house, and 38 per cent have never seen another man take care of siblings and 45 per cent have never seen another man prepare meals.
Despite these results, a majority of the respondents said domestic work should be shared among men and women, with 89 per cent saying no man should be mocked for doing domestic work.
Consequently, the report recommends the recognition, reduction and redistribution of unpaid work as well as including of unpaid carers in decision making at all levels.
