“The advancement of women’s rights and economic empowerment in market systems contributes to the economic well-being of families, communities, and nations.
How can we do this better?
Market systems programs are increasingly targeting women’s economic empowerment. However, approaches to support women to participate in paid work often assume that women’s time is elastic. They fail to consider roles and responsibilities in the household and the community, and the unpaid labor needed to sustain the households, community and the economy. This can undermine both development outcomes and market activities. For women to fully enjoy their economic rights in an optimized, shared and sustained way, the interlinkages between unpaid care work and market systems approaches need to be understood and addressed.
What is unpaid care work?
Unpaid care work is a group of activities that serves people in their well-being, outside the paid economy. It includes (i) direct care of people; (ii) housework; and (iii) unpaid community work. It is work because it involves time and energy in and it is shaped by power relations and social norms.
Unpaid care work is a social good. It becomes problematic when it is:
1. invisible, and therefore undervalued or ignored
2. characterized by extremely heavy care tasks, most notably in poor communities without adequate access to services; and,
3. unequal, meaning that the biggest responsibility falls on women and girls in poor communities.
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To read the full article:
http://www.seepnetwork.org/blog/understanding-unpaid-care-work-womens-empowerment-paid-economy
Rita chemaly
Ritachemaly's Blog 