Annotation Summary for “What do women/men/youth think/feel about women’s unpaid care burden?”
The Articles(Background)
The articles explore how men’s, women’s, and youth’s beliefs, attitudes, and practises, as well as weak societal support for shared caregiving, impact gender equality at the household level. The changing role of “motherhood” in the lives of girls and young women in Ethiopia, married men’s attitudes towards gender-based labour allocation, and their experience of delegating household duties to their spouses were examined, and the articles highlight the need to transform gender inequitable practises in relation to family life by addressing underlying factors that perpetuate inequality. It has been 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, and this has a negative impact on women’s socio-economic development in Ethiopia, with gender and social roles restricting their choices and making them time poor. In addition, the role of children in the household economy in Ethiopia was analysed to better understand the evolution of intra-household work allocation and the relationship between girls’ and boys’ work.
Mani Findings
- Most married men had a positive gender role orientation and were highly experienced in sharing household chores with their spouses. However, some roles were always done by women, such as laundering clothes, cleaning a house, and feeding children.
- Women’s inequality is exacerbated by religious and social norms, which limit their access to paid employment due to their unpaid domestic activities.
- Women living in households headed by men are vulnerable to poverty due to a lack of financial resources and time.
- The majority of children work for the family in addition to attending school and are engaged in the family farm or business.
- Household composition, birth order, sibling composition, gender, and age influence the division of household labour, with older girls having more work.
- Girls in Ethiopia start preparing for “motherwork” at age 5, often performing household chores without adult supervision.
- Marriage and motherhood remain essential steps to achieving full adult status, but norms are increasingly internalised by girls and their families, leading to a changing gender script for young women.
- Women were more likely than men to engage in agricultural production activities, but they were labelled as immoral and prevented from doing so due to social taboos and traditions.
- Mobilising women to participate in agricultural production increased their workloads, with age, marital status, and non-relative support being the main factors.
- Older children are more likely to drop out of school or not enrol at all due to financial issues and the preference for older children’s labour to take care of household chores.
Conclusion
In conclusion, understanding children and work in Ethiopia, as well as the impact of household composition and sibling relationships, is important. Parents in low-income households prefer to have their children work at home, and sociocultural attitudes reduce the likelihood of girls enrolling in school. Young mothers have a vital role to play in influencing social change and reshaping family life and social relations by addressing structural inequalities, examining cultural models and norms, and implementing interventions to reduce workloads and increase agricultural productivity. Men and women should have equal access to resources and benefits, and behaviour change is needed as gender biases are causing women to be less equal than men.
Recommendations
- Tackling entrenched social norms and gender stereotypes can reduce caregiving and shape gender norms that prevent men from assuming equal caring responsibilities.
- Better access to public services, child care and care for the elderly allows for better work-life balance.