Voices on Unpaid Caregiving: Exploring the Perception of Men, Women, and Youth in Ethiopia

The ILO estimates the value of unpaid care and domestic work to be as much as 9 percent of global GDP (USD 11 trillion), with women’s contribution at around 6.6 percent of GDP compared to men’s at 2.4 percent of GDP 

(Hernando, 2022).

By Dr Kristie Drucza, Dr Amira Kaddour, and Hidaya Muhiden

Introduction

All non-market, unpaid activities performed in households are referred to as unpaid care and domestic work. This includes both direct care of people, such as looking after children or the elderly, and indirect care, cooking, cleaning, or fetching water (OECD, 2019). The magnitude and impact of unpaid work differs for women and men, with socioeconomic conditions such as household income, education level, marital status and the number of children all playing a role in such differences (ILO, 2018). Women and girls around the world tend to perform most of the unpaid care and domestic work.

The role of children in the household economy has been analysed by several studies to understand the evolution of intra-household work allocation and the relationship between girls’ and boys’ work. Ethiopian girls are raised in a gendered culture where certain behaviours are expected of them (Crivello et al., 2019). They begin learning chores at an early age, which are frequently based on gender roles and divisions within families and communities. Chuta and Morrow’s study (2015) found that girls and women put in enormous effort to take care of others. This work is not only unpaid, but is frequently not even considered to be work at all. This has a negative impact on women’s socio-economic development, with gender and social roles restricting their choices and making them time poor.

The changing role of “motherhood” in Ethiopia: What do women think about unpaid care? 

Gender roles in rural society restrict women’s choices, leading to unpaid domestic and reproductive activities time poverty, which has a negative impact on women’s economic opportunities. Women spend the majority of their time on agricultural activities, with a higher proportion of unpaid household responsibilities. Kenea (2019) indicated that a lack of bargaining power is responsible for women’s restricted access to information and new technologies in agricultural production. 

However, the younger generation of women spend longer periods in school and delay transition to adulthood. 

“During our age, the parents simply gave their daughters to husbands in their early childhood but now everything depends on the choices of the girls”. 

Older Mother comment from Crivello et al., (2019).

These developments mark a changing gender script for young women. They make the new normative trajectory from childhood schooling, to adult employment, followed by marriage and motherhood.

How do young people feel about unpaid care? 

Ethiopian children play a central role in the household economy. Social bias, economic standing, attitudes towards girls’ and boys’ educational opportunities, and traditional family decision-making all contribute to gender inequality. Household composition, birth order, and sibling composition also determine which children do which type of work, with some having heavier burdens than others. 

A study conducted by Crivello et al., 2019, found that norms are increasingly internalised by girls and their families. So while young women had more options in their path to adulthood, than their mothers, their ability to make independent decisions was constrained. This is because young people are caught between traditional and modern life, poverty and promise, which causes them to be uncertain about their life choices. 

Education and gender equality are essential components of contemporary childhood for young women’s empowerment and choice-making but achieving these goals is difficult. Although there are high expectations for girls’ futures and academic success, these are limited by the realities of the environment in which they live. Their need to take on responsibilities is frequently related to larger household stressors, such as poverty and disadvantage. This frequently leaves the eldest girl child responsible for looking after the other children and domestic duties while their parents search for paid work. Moreover, migration is seen as a pathway to adulthood among rural young people; leaving school being the most common first transition to work.

Recent findings showed that young married women were spending up to 8 hours a day on unpaid work and care, which reflects the naturalisation of rigid gender norms that assigned men the role of ‘breadwinners’ and women, carer. Young mothers argued that men have the decision-making power and women have to be polite and obedient (Crivello et al., 2019). Meanwhile, others in the study claimed that men were ‘useless’ at childcare (Crivello et al., 2019). Gender equality is influenced by everyone’s attitude and beliefs.

What do Men think about unpaid care? 

Tackling the unequal distribution of unpaid work between men and women is an essential step toward achieving gender equality. Unpaid care work is often considered a secondary issue, but it’s one of the key drivers of gender inequality. Although acknowledging the unequal burden of unpaid care work is important, it isn’t enough to change the status of women’s rights. To empower women, their families, and communities, the time women spend on unpaid care work needs to be reduced and redistributed. That means that male relatives, particularly husbands, must shoulder some of the burden. 

Studies have shown that men’s attitudes toward women have changed recently; for instance, the study in Wolaita Sodo town, southern Ethiopia by Zewdu B, et al., (2021), examined married men’s attitudes towards gender-based labour allocation and their experience assigning household duties to their spouses and found that men’s attitudes and practices have changed. Respondents had positive sex and family role orientations. The findings show that most (86.1%) share household tasks with their spouses, and the gender division of labour is also changing, with education, and the support of religious leaders, role models, and male relatives playing a key role.

If young mothers are not observing men’s increased share of unpaid care work, then potentially men are unaware about how much unpaid care work their spouses do. Making structural-level changes to men’s involvement in care is difficult for two reasons: firstly, policy, production, and public life are heavily dominated by men, and secondly, patriarchy supports men’s low participation in domestic social reproduction. Increasing the value of care as a societal principle would address both of these issues simultaneously, especially if care is decoupled from gender. How can men be incentivised to do their share of unpaid work in a patriarchal society that does not hold them accountable?

Conclusion

More time spent on unpaid care means less time available for paid work, political engagement, self-care, rest, education and leisure. Heavy and unequal care responsibilities prevent women from equally enjoying their rights to education, decent work, health, and participation, among other things, and is a major barrier to gender equality.

Due to their unequal share of unpaid care work, women are not able to fully participate in developing countries’ economies. They frequently have to compromise their free time in order to find paid work, and it is difficult to find safe and fair employment, which is a major barrier to women’s economic empowerment. 

In order to cope with the disproportionate burden of care work in Ethiopia, the following points are recommended:

1. An explicit focus on unpaid care work should be given by increasing public awareness of the importance of unpaid domestic and care work, and its connection to development. Media engagement and communication campaigns, along with policy advocacy for reducing and redistributing unpaid care and domestic work, is required. 
2. Shift social norms and enhance the redistribution of care responsibilities by fostering male engagement; essential for achieving gender equality.
3. Develop better and more affordable access to child care and care for the elderly to promote better work-life balance.

Changes in how care work is valued, allocated, and shared between men and women in households and workplaces are necessary to unleash women’s economic potential in Ethiopia.

References

1. Chuta, N. and Morrow, V. (2015) “Young Lives Working Paper 135. Youth Trajectories through Work and Marriage in Rural Ethiopia,” Young Lives [Preprint]. Available at: http://r4d.dfid.gov.uk/pdf/outputs/YoungLives/YL-WP135-Youth-Trajectories-in-Ethiopia.pdf.
2. Crivello, G., Boyden, J. and Pankhurst, A. (2019) “‘Motherhood in Childhood’: Generational Change in Ethiopia,” Feminist Encounters, 3(1–2).
3. Hernando, R. C. (2022) ”Unpaid Care and Domestic Work: Counting the Costs, APEC Policy Support Unit.
4. ILO. (2018) ”Women do 4 times more unpaid care work than men in Asia and the Pacific”. Available at: https://www.ilo.org/asia/media-centre/news/WCMS_633284/lang–en/index.htm
5. OECD Gender Institutions and Development Database (GID-DB).(2019), oecd.stat.org
6. Zewude, B., Melese, B., & Habtegiorgis, T. (2021) ”The Attitude of Married Men towards Gender Division of Labor and their Experiences in Sharing Household Tasks with their Marital Spouses in Southern Ethiopia. East African Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 6(2), 101 – 114