Women and unpaid care work: a barrier in bridging gender gaps

Abstract

A relevant aspect of economic activity and a needful factor contributing to the well-being of people is unpaid care work. Data show that this type of work remains a predominantly female responsibility. Globally, women perform 76.2 percent of total hours of unpaid care work. By analyzing time use data and existing literature, this work aims to explore how the unequal burden of unpaid care work affects women and their economic empowerment. It emerges that gender inequalities in unpaid care work are related to gender gaps in labor outcomes: the unequal responsibilities of unpaid care work limit women in their participation in the labor force, granting them lower pay as a result of taking lower-quality jobs, with low intensity and remuneration. Root causes of this unequal charge of work on women are to be found in the role that social norms, policy, social institutions, and economic environment play. Women's unpaid care work is not very measured despite having a pervasive impact on women's economic empowerment. This study aims to provide an analysis of this topic and its consequences highlighting what measures should be enforced to exceed this criticality, as the implementation of policies that support equal redistribution of unpaid care and domestic work. The essay ends with an overview of the Italian situation: women produce 64.4 percent of the unpaid care work placing Italy as one of the countries with the highest gender differences in time devoted to unpaid care work in Europe.