Women’s work

It still amazes me that, in 2024, there are still some people who speak of “women’s work.” Not in the simple sense of work that women just so happen to do, but as work that supposedly, by its very nature, is work that women are best suited to do – and where the idea of ‘best suited’ quickly morphs into one where women have the obligation to do such work. That there are such fundamental differences between men and women is an idea that is ingrained in most societies from cradle to grave – and it is also one of the most harmful myths of our culture today, and the biggest obstacle to women’s empowerment, particularly their economic empowerment.

Why must we prioritize the economic empowerment of women? In the recent United Nations (UN) 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which I participated in last March, it was shown that it is simply better for everyone in the long run. For instance, closing the gender gaps in employment could boost Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita by 20 percent across all regions. Gender inequality in earnings alone costs the world, according to the CSW, more than twice the value of global GDP in terms of human capital wealth. It has been observed that even when the gender gaps in education are lessened, this does not lead to more women participating in labor markets. Women continue to be excluded from certain labor markets – limited and steered to a small number of occupations and sectors, which leads to over-crowding in these segments that serves to make it difficult to find proper employment and which drives down the wages of those who do find employment.

The primary cause of women being held back from full economic equality and empowerment lies in the continued prevalence of the idea of “women’s work,” of the stubborn persistence of gender-based division of labor. Many societies continue to indoctrinate women with stereotypical, patriarchal views regarding gender and labor, such as that men should be the breadwinners while women take care of the family; men are stronger, more aggressive, better leaders and more suited to jobs involving math and the hard sciences, while women are more emotional, submissive, nurturing, and if not solely devoted to their families should be relegated to roles in the softer sciences or those involving caregiving.

It is important to point out that many justifications of gender-based division of labor have already been discredited. The so-called gender gap in mathematics has also been revealed to be nothing more than the result of gendered access to education. In gender equal societies, girls score as well or better than boys in math tests. It makes no more sense to divide jobs on the basis of sex as it does to divide toys into boys and girls’ sections – such categorizations persist not as inevitable truths, but as conscious choices.

And as with anything that is the result of a choice, it can be changed by choosing an alternative path. Of course, this is easier said than done – the current inequities are the result of inequalities that have been built up over the course of centuries. But difficult does not mean impossible, and experts who spoke at the 68th UN CSW session offered insight on how to begin the process.

In general, it is important to expand the fiscal space for women’s participation, and invest in social infrastructure. This means such measures such as adopting more progressive taxation and less indirect taxes, to equalize the burden of taxation, perhaps even linking specific taxes to spending on programs for the poor and on gender equality. Given the disproportionate burden assumed by women in poor households, such general changes will also have a large effect on the economic power of women.

There are more targeted measures that can and should be taken. Short-term cash assistance programs particularly targeted towards women, accompanied by training in the proper use of assets, savings and investments should be undertaken. The government, through the Department of Social Welfare and Development currently gives cash assistance through the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program to heads of the family and provides education on financial management through the sessions for the family; but measures specifically for women should be explored. Other efforts can be through amendments of marriage and property laws to be more gender equitable; and the creation of more opportunities for home-based income generation and remote work, as women will benefit from any attempts to fight back against greedy work (which I wrote about a few months back).

But by far the most important means to empower women economically would be to reduce the unpaid care work that women have been chained to as a result of outdated and patriarchal gender-based divisions of labor. Women continue to perform the vast majority of household labor and family care without compensation. On average, women spend around three times more time on unpaid care and domestic work than men. The fact that it is women who bear children can not and must not be used as an excuse to shackle them to the home, or to require them to solely take on the obligations of care for children and households. This lopsided burden is one of the primary culprits behind the gender gaps in employment.

As such, the government and private employers should look at supporting families in the provision of childcare and acknowledging the work that women do in the home and for childcare. This would increase women’s ability to participate in the economy and is crucial to closing the gender wage gap. As found by the UN: “Investing to transform care systems is a triple win: it allows women to reclaim their time while creating jobs in the care sector and increasing access to care services for those that need them. It is estimated that closing existing gaps in care services and expanding decent work programmes would create almost 300 million jobs by 2035.”

In 2024, it is time to stop partitioning work, and time to get to work – the essential work of improving the lives of women, to improve the lives of all.