- Unpaid care norm in Ethiopia
Gender norms in the community give low social status to women, with a man being the sole decision-maker. Women are seen as responsible for home tasks such as cooking, fetching water, making coffee, caring for children, and washing clothes. This has a negative effect on women’s health, as they have no time to take rest each day. Gender patterns in time devoted to unpaid care work are perpetuated across generations, with women spending more time on unpaid care activities than men. In Ethiopia, (Geleta et al., 2015, 242 – 250) explored gender norms influence on family planning decision making among married men and women in Rural Kebeles and revealed that gender norms practise in the community began early at birth, with cultural belief accepted from the previous generation, beliefs and attitude related to gender and lack of education being the main pre-existing conditions.
Other findings included men’s need for more children as a sign of social prestige, fear of side effects, misconceptions and rumours, and women’s lack of decision-making power as one of the most stated challenges regarding poor utilisation of family planning. (Geleta et al., 2015, 242 – 250) stated that interventions on this matter should be made to launch awareness-raising activities, community discussions, even at the individual level, and men need to be given the chance to discuss their roles as men in community and household level.
Gender equality and equity in livelihood resource allocation and service provision is an important factor in rural development approaches. However, gender inequality, lack of equity and power imbalance still exist within communities living in rural study areas. (Owitti, 2015, 51-79) examine gender-based disparities and relationships between men and women in rural household livelihoods. The findings show a significant difference and power imbalance between men and women, with women engaged in unpaid reproductive roles, having more work burden, and facing demographic, social, economic, cultural, and institutional constraints. As reported by (Owitti, 2015, 51-79) household headship is one main determinant that influences and shapes gender roles and responsibilities, access to and control over livelihood resources and agricultural extension services in rural households. Women faced labour constraint and problems related to work culture in pre-harvest and livestock management activities.
This culturally based gendered division of labour contributes to unequal access to and control over resources and extension services. To improve the standard of living for both men and women living in rural areas, (Owitti, 2015, 51-79) advises efforts from development actors and policy-makers to implement strategies for gender mainstreaming, sensitization and responsive actions to ensure gender equality, equity and balance in rural areas. Adolescent girls are often key contributors to family life, providing labour, care and income(Camfield, 2013, 107-123) argued that increasing participation in social protection is intended to enhance the development of girls, but evidence suggests the reverse may be happening.
(Teshager et al., 2019, 16-31) examined the difficulties faced by working mothers in Ethiopia in regards to childcare and its effects on workplace productivity and found that working mothers do not have access to childcare facilities both inside and outside of their university, and that informal extended maternity leaves are common but childcare incentives are insufficient. This negatively impacts their work performance and causes them to arrive late for work. Working mothers’ opportunities to participate in leadership roles are hampered by their dual responsibilities. Ethiopian policies encourage women to hold leadership positions, but these circumstances work against them.
Reproductive factors such as home chores and childcare have negative implications for their work environment. Institutional and structural Challenges such as unavailability of childcare centres, strict 3-month maternity leave policy, non-conducive environment for lactating mothers, lack of affordable childcare services, privacy and adequate time to express breast milk, not having flexible working hours, lack of incentives for childcare, and denying sick-child days are major challenges. Attitude is a mediating factor between child care related factors and performance. Women who work in higher education institutions are better at managing their family size. Daycare facilities and incentives are suggested to improve the working environment and boost working mothers’ performance and flexible working hours should be taken into account when scheduling according to (Teshager et al., 2019, 16-31) findings.
According to (Berhane et al., 2019, 52-59) adolescent girls in the age group 13-17 are in a critical phase of their life, where they can either be helped to follow a path that enables them to thrive or they will revert to traditional roles that limit their potential and make them more susceptible to risks to their sexual and reproductive health. Improving girls’ sexual and reproductive health requires an understanding of the connection between their agency and the social norms that are currently in place. (Jones et al., 2014) examines the key drivers of shifting and persisting norms surrounding early marriage in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, and its effects on adolescent girls’ educational opportunities and wellbeing. It focuses on how gendered social norms are shaped by individual agency, socioeconomic conditions, demographic factors and social institutions.The study found that gendered social norms for adolescent girls in Ethiopia are changing unevenly due to rapid economic development, but from a low base. Access to education, supportive male relatives, positive local role models, top-down social mobilisation, and legal changes are the main forces behind progressive gender norm change.
(Camfield, 2013, 107-123) suggests addressing the unequal economic and social roles given to women by providing fair working conditions, equal pay policies, and access to affordable, high-quality care services. Social protection schemes, such as PSNP in Ethiopia increase girls’ workloads and reduce their time for study and leisure. This is due to the gendered nature of social provisioning and the inability to protect against household shocks. To address this, (Jones et al., 2014) and (Camfield, 2013, 107-123) highlights the need to revalue social reproduction and recognise girls’ role in it and policy and programming solutions should include greater attention to educational and vocational training alternatives, investing in safe spaces, improving services for already married girls, and engaging men and boys in constructive activities.
- Strategies for Women to cope with Unpaid Care
The global commitment to women’s economic empowerment has never been stronger. Evidence suggests that increasing women’s labour force participation and economic opportunities can lead to sustainable and inclusive growth. However, women still face poorer economic outcomes than men. Unpaid care work is a major contributor to the slow and uneven progress towards gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, with women spending three times longer on it than men.
Research shows that unequal distribution of caring responsibilities is deeply embedded in social norms, impacting women’s ability to participate fully in the paid economy. Policies and programmes for women’s economic empowerment often ignore women’s disproportionate share of the world’s unpaid care work, instead focusing on structural barriers. In regard to this (Ferrant & Thim, 2019) reviewed policy and programme solutions to promote women’s economic empowerment by recognising, reducing and redistributing women’s unpaid care work. They found that only women with higher education are likely to see a decrease in routine housework, while economic growth is associated with a reduction in unpaid care work. However, higher levels of economic development do not necessarily lead to a more equal redistribution of unpaid care work between men and women.
(Ferrant & Thim, 2019) in their study recommends recognizing unpaid care work by measuring and valuing it, decreasing time spent on drudgery by providing quality infrastructure, and redistributing unpaid care tasks more equally between men and women by transforming gender stereotypes. This will help to reduce gender disparities in unpaid care work. Recognising unpaid care work is important for a country’s well-being and economic growth. It requires greater investments in time, use of data and a commitment to valuing it. Time use data can be comparable across countries and over time, and assigning a monetary value to it challenges traditional views of wealth and notions of women’s contribution to the economy. Redistribution of care and domestic tasks can be achieved by promoting shared responsibility within the household, as called for in SDG 5.4. Gender equality strategies and policies should focus on paternity leave, non-transferable parental leave, media campaigns promoting fathers’ caregiving, and social norms change. Paternity leave should be paid with a work culture that supports it, and media campaigns should promote fathers’ caregiving. Social norms change should be at the centre of gender equality strategies and policies.
As reported by (Ferrant & Thim, 2019) the “3Rs” framework provides a policy framework for addressing the unequal distribution of caring responsibilities between women and men. It includes three sections: Recognise, Redistribute and Redistribute unpaid care work; Measure and Value Unpaid care work is an important aspect of economic activity and an indispensable factor contributing to the well-being of individuals, their families and societies. Time use data is an indispensable tool for the recognition of unpaid care work, but only 83 countries have ever conducted time-use surveys. Feminist economists and women’s rights advocates have fought for unpaid care work to be valued in national accounts using time use, labour force and income survey data.
The effects of changes to Ethiopia’s family law that strengthened women’s economic rights were examined by (Driemeier & Gajigo, 2015, 260–273). According to the finding, the new Family Code 2000’s implementation is linked to a significant rise in the number of women working in professions that require more education and have a high non-home employment rate. Young, single women are particularly affected by the new Family Law; their relative increase in participation is 15–24% higher than in non–reforming areas. It also has a significant impact on raising the proportion of women working outside the home.
These findings support earlier findings that enhancing property rights enhances one’s capacity to take advantage of economic opportunities, which should motivate efforts to promote the economic empowerment of women. In addition, legal reforms are required, per (Driemeier & Gajigo, 2015, 260–273), to address regulatory or legal barriers to women’s economic empowerment and, in line with this, to provide an identification strategy for evaluating the significance of the strengthening of women’s economic rights in women’s relative ability to pursue economic opportunities. Even though there has been an increased push for women’s economic empowerment, the issue of gender gaps in formal economic rights is not being addressed.
(Boyden et al., 2021, 74-87) in their study found that the expansion of education in Ethiopia has had a significant impact on children’s time allocation, with time spent working declining and school attendance increasing. Data from the Young Lives sample and two rural communities with vibrant economies show that location is the strongest determinant of gendered time use, with children from urban areas and wealthier families maintaining higher educational aspirations throughout childhood. Girls may be motivated by social worth through marriage and motherhood, or because their labour market prospects are poor, there is no pressure to leave school for work.According to (Boyden et al., 2021, 74-87)Children’s work is an important part of Ethiopia’s economic growth, poverty reduction, and school expansion. Boys and girls contribute to varying degrees to both productive, domestic, and care regimes, and are appreciated as means of learning life-skills. Access to primary, and to a lesser extent secondary, schooling has expanded, but work remains central to children’s lives. In the past, most of the work done by children was unpaid, but growth in private rural enterprises, an increase in adult migration, and social protection schemes have stimulated their paid work.
Marriage style, lower educational status and social position of women, and violence against women are some of the dynamics that shape gendered production relations in the rural contexts of the Global South. Third World feminism argues that women of the Global South may have different opportunities in gendered bargaining within patriarchal structures, including bargaining over the use of agricultural production within the household. (Tsige, 2019, 799-825) explored the question of gender equitable production relations by drawing on empirical data from women and men smallholders involved in conservation agriculture and small-scale irrigation schemes in three study areas in Ethiopia. The findings showed that the use of agricultural technologies does not improve unequal gendered production relations, rather, gender norms that exist within patriarchal social structures continue to influence production relations in three ways: societal norms restrict women from asserting their self interest in gendered bargaining, there is a customary law that allows men but not women to inherit land, and the restricted access of women to rural institutional services further contributes to unequal gendered production relations.
(Chiarini, 2017) identifies important factors and strategies that have contributed to the outcome of rural women’s economic empowerment and their links with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The first strategy is to strengthen sustainable livelihoods by encouraging an environment that recognises and values rural women’s productive activities and upholds and fulfils their rights to decent work. The Household Methodologies (HHMs) are creative, participatory approaches to promote equitable intra-household relations, fair division of labour, and shared decision-making processes and concludes that the strategy is beginning to show promise in terms of opening up job opportunities and having a positive impact on their families’ social welfare.
Raising the status of women is a major development strategy that can be feasible and less expensive than economic models of development. The experience of Sri Lanka and other Asian countries has confirmed that social development, particularly the emancipation of women, has multiplying beneficial effects on different dimensions of development. The economic activity of a mother determines many things, including infant mortality rates. (Gebre-Egziabher, 2016, 102-117) stated that to improve the status of women, all practices that discriminate against them should be eliminated and the participation of females in the educational system should be improved. (Gebre-Egziabher, 2016, 102-117)examines the role of females’ literacy status and educational level in the population dynamics process, focusing on the reduction of fertility levels in Tigray and identifying concrete areas of intervention that would promote the well-being of women and develop indicators for monitoring and evaluating the population dynamics process. The average age at first birth for females is 19 years, and the mean number of children born is about four. However, there is a high rate of complications related to pregnancies. Females’ education is considered the key variable in the fertility reduction process.
- Service and Support for Unpaid care
Unpaid care is a social good and valuable activity that is essential for maintaining society. It is often invisible, unequal and heavy, and can lead to time poverty, poor health and well-being, limited mobility, and perpetuation of women’s unequal status in society. Research has shown that economic empowerment can build self-confidence and enhance women’s agency and women make significant contributions to local economies, but face barriers to realising their full potential. Market systems programmes are recognising the importance of women in market activity, but unpaid care work is often overlooked. Market development interventions often assume women’s ability to participate in paid work is based on assumptions around the elasticity of their time. (Thorpe et al., 2016) outlines how the provision of care can be integrated into a market systems approach with an aim to reduce poverty by transforming an economic system in which poor households can participate in buying or selling goods, services or labour.
Unpaid care work affects women’s ability to benefit from market opportunities through three key ways: time, mobility and agency. Time is rarely elastic, particularly in poor households, and women’s daily activities require a mixture of tasks pertaining to domestic care work, subsistence, productive work and rest and productive work. Mobility is limited by social norms, while agency and decision-making power is low due to the perception of women not contributing to the household economy. These factors are interrelated and affect women’s ability to participate in community or co-operative decision-making bodies.
According to (Thorpe et al., 2016) interventions in the agricultural sector can lead to increased household time burdens for women, men and children, but well-designed systemic programmes can reduce this burden through value chains and improved productivity. And suggests that programs must undertake a gendered market analysis to consider unpaid care, how it impacts the market system, and how it may be impacted by interventions. As reported by (Thorpe et al., 2016) there are three ways to consider unpaid care: mainstreaming, designing interventions, and focussing on it as a strategic market sector.(Thorpe et al., 2016) highlights the importance of addressing the patterns of care provision to improve market outcomes and achieve wider development aims. Interventions may reduce or redistribute care work, or change institutional or power relations that determine the pattern of care responsibilities.
On the other hand, studies suggest that women’s many family roles and responsibilities may result in work-family conflict, which can affect their business performance. Additionally, role overload on women entrepreneurs can lead to marital tension/conflict. In line with this, (Gudeta & Engen, 2017) explores the work-life boundary management experiences and challenges women entrepreneurs face in combining their work-life responsibilities and the findings indicated that women are forced to integrate as a work-life boundary management strategy due to normative expectations placed on them to handle caregiving and household duties, as well as fulfil societal roles and obligations.
According to (Gudeta & Engen, 2017), women in Ethiopia are expected to handle all household and child care duties on their own and to perform community roles. Because of this normative expectation, the women have little to no say in the boundary-management strategy they use. Previous research has shown that gender role expectations for women pose difficulties in balancing work and family obligations, particularly for those who subscribe to traditional gender roles. According to the study, women seem to have accepted and normalised having sole responsibility for caring for the home and children. Women business owners often refer to their work as another “child” that needs their care and attention, which makes scheduling difficult and uncontrollable. (Gudeta & Engen, 2017) stated that there is a need to acknowledge the difficulties women entrepreneurs face in balancing their work and personal lives and create programs and practical training to assist them in doing so.
Young and female migrant workers continue to be the least protected workers, and unpaid care work is not included in national statistics. According to Cirillo (2021, 97-109), domestic work presents a sizable employment opportunity for Ethiopian women, but it is not sufficiently protected. Unpaid work at home and paid domestic work performed in another person’s home are the two typical approaches. Although it is typically associated with tasks related to the feminine gender, unpaid domestic work is not recognized as being productive.
As reported by (Cirillo, 2021, 97-109) governments are being lobbied for better pay, written contracts, access to social protection, and the right to a safe workplace. To advance their rights, domestic workers must organise other types of action outside of formal channels, such as neighbourhood interactions and unofficial gatherings. Despite the fact that the government has bilateral labour agreements with four Middle Eastern countries, the majority of women who work are concentrated in the unorganised sector. To provide this group of unprotected women workers with decent working conditions, an integrated strategy is required.
According to (Cirillo, 2021, 97-109) to support the struggle for domestic workers’ rights in Ethiopia support networks are mobilised at local, regional, national and international level, but much remains to be done to achieve decent work conditions and ethnographic research can contribute to political action by listening to the voices of domestic workers, and by organising the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) to recruit new members and foster new solutions. Further, unpaid care work presents a significant barrier to women’s socioeconomic empowerment and is a key driver of change for livelihoods programs. Such analysis is necessary to pinpoint the most effective points of entry for influencing the redistribution of care work. (Mager et al., 2017) sought to change gender relations and the balance of power in decision-making while increasing the participation of women in economic activities.
According to study results (Mager et al., 2017), increased coffee production did not have a negative impact on women’s unpaid caregiving, and this positive change was influenced by other social and cultural factors, such as the government’s and religious authorities’ provision of education and training. Moreover, studies have shown that the availability of modern contraception has had a significant impact on human capital investments and labour market outcomes of women and birth spacing is important for economic empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa, as it allows mothers to care for their children and work for pay. (John et al., 2020, 23-43) in their study found evidence that consistent contraceptive use was associated with a woman’s ability to work in the labour market and receive payment for work, although it was not related to her contribution to the family income. In addition, family planning programs can play a critical role in the socioeconomic empowerment of women, especially for poorer families.
Besides, (Morrow & Boyden, 2018) young lives research has shown that many children are working as part of their daily lives to ensure household survival. Governments should remove children from the worst forms of ‘child labour’ and support other working children. The most important details are to focus on the most harmful work, implement sensitive child labour legislation, address family poverty, help children who work access schooling, and address care work in the home. TO achieve this (Morrow & Boyden, 2018) recommends that governments should collaborate with communities and families to support children who have to work due to poverty and societal norms. Schools should be child-friendly, free from violence, and offer flexible timetables, re-enrolment, and extra tuition for children who leave school early and social protection schemes should be increased and designed to benefit children.
References
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