How do social norms influence unpaid care responsibilities in Ethiopia?

By Hidaya Muhiden and Dr Kristie Drucza

What are social norms?

Social norms are rules that can drive human behaviour and can be informal and unwritten, but they can also find their way into laws and policies. According to Bicchieri 2017, humans behave in certain ways because people expect them to behave this way, or because they think they may face sanctions (including gossip and vitriol) if they don’t behave this way. They may or may not internally believe this is the correct way to behave. Bicchieri differentiates between empirical expectations, which are beliefs about what other people will do, and normative expectations, which are beliefs about what other people think you should do. Social norms can be difficult to measure and change. 

Gender norms are deeply ingrained from early childhood, leading to a stark difference in the allocation of unpaid care and domestic work between girls and boys. This disparity has profound consequences for girls’ well-being, as it restricts their time for learning, personal development, and leisure. Such norms can also shape boys’ perceptions of the value of girls’ time, potentially leading to limited roles for girls as they grow up, reinforcing traditional gender roles as mothers and caregivers. 

In many communities, women are accorded lower social status, with men being the sole decision-makers. Consequently, women are assigned a disproportionate amount of unpaid caring responsibilities such as cooking, fetching water, making coffee, caring for children, and washing clothes, leaving them with no time for rest or self-care. As a consequence, women’s mobility is constrained, limiting their access to essential information crucial for enhancing their standard of living. Even in urban areas, working mothers miss out on work travel and training opportunities due to unpaid care, impacting on workplace productivity.

The perpetuation of gender norms persists across generations, with women continuing to spend more time on such activities compared to men. This unequal distribution of care work not only hinders women’s personal growth and health but also reinforces gender inequalities in society.

Ethiopia 

Social institutions affect gender roles by defining what behaviours are deemed acceptable or unacceptable in a society. The behaviour of groups, communities, and individuals are shaped or constrained by social institutions such as formal and informal laws, social norms, and practices. 

In Ethiopia, women have lower adult literacy rates than men do. The difference in adult literacy between men and women is 14.8 (59.2% for men and 44.4% for women). The knock-on effect of lower educational attainment is huge and generational. 

While many people blame women’s lower social status in Ethiopia on women’s educational attainment and literacy rates, the reality is that women do work. For the year 2022, the labour force participation rate in Ethiopia is 86.2% for men and 75.0% for women. Despite a low gender gap in employment compared with other countries, working mothers experience a variety of childcare challenges, which negatively impacts their work performance and ability to be promoted. 

In addition to paid work, women do the bulk of the unpaid work. In Ethiopia in 2013, men worked 6.6% and women 19.3% of the day in unpaid work. As of 2019 data, in Ethiopia, women spend 2.9 times longer than men doing unpaid care and domestic work (World Bank). The gendered division of labour contributes to unequal access to, and control over, resources and employment opportunities. However, little has been done to account for the value of women’s unpaid work within the home in national accounts.

Gender disparities in unpaid care work are explained by discriminatory norms that compound and reduce women’s opportunities. In Ethiopia, paid work is viewed as a masculine task while unpaid caregiving is viewed as a woman’s responsibility (Geleta et al, 2015). Men feel that they “help women” when they do domestic work, instead of seeing it as their equal responsibility. Literacy and education are not responsible for women’s disproportionate unpaid care role. Inequalities in caring responsibilities also exist in wealthy and educated households, where women devote more than 60% of the time to housework and childcare regardless of their employment, income, or educational status (Rizavi and Sofer, 2010). Social norms can weaken women’s and girls’ bargaining power by weakening their ‘outside options’ or prescribing more ‘quiet’ and ‘covert’ behaviour to females. Social norms and bargaining processes are closely related, as they can make people accept a status quo that is not beneficial to them. 

So what works to shift social norms?

Despite many challenges, Ethiopia has risen on the Gender Gap Index. With a 2021 score of 0.71, Ethiopia was ranked 74 out of 146 countries in 2021, even higher than Kenya (Statista). The gender gap has narrowed in Ethiopia since 2010, thanks to an increase in the proportion of seats in parliament held by women. Women held 41.5% of the seats in Ethiopia’s national parliament in 2022. 

There are various ways to change norms. Sometimes a norm gets fixed, even if people do not believe in the norm anymore. In Ethiopia’s case, a new administration set a quota for women in parliament. This helped the nation realise that there were qualified and education women who had been previously excluded from leadership opportunities. The benefits of women in leadership positions will have a lasting impact on young girls who can aspire to be leaders for generations to come. Role modelling is important for changing unequal gender norms.

Rapid economic development is improving some gender changes in Ethiopia but not at a fast enough rate. Women also miss out on economic growth as they are not integrated adequately in the markets that grow. Initiatives like setting quotas and targeting the needs of girls and women is required to reset from decades of missed opportunities. For example, the improvement of services for married women, investments in safe spaces that are free from violence and theft, and the targeted engagement of men and boys in positive activities are some policy and programming solutions that should be used to address uneven gender norms (Berhane et al., 2019). Here are some other recommendations: 

Raising Awareness: Conduct awareness-raising activities on the vital role played by women in providing unpaid care and equivalent cost to the economy if it was paid.

Care related business development: Build daycare facilities to improve the working environment and boost working mothers’ performance.

Interventions: Development actors and policy-makers should advocate for affirmative action, targets, quotas and other strategies that are then evaluated to ensure evidence-based solutions are promoted

There is growing attention to the critical importance of understanding and addressing social norms. Predominant social norms have a significant impact on the policies that are adopted, the resources that are allocated, the decisions that are made, and the priorities that governments and organisations adopt and pursue. 

For those who are interested in creating communities that are healthier and more equitable, please:

• Reach out to Includovate for a partnership: [email protected]
• Share your response to this blog below and let us know how you are changing social norms in Ethiopia?

Acknowledgment

This blog is the first of a series to reflect on our learnings from a project under the Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) – East Africa Initiative.  GrOW is jointly funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. We thank GrOW wholeheartedly for funding and making this project on ‘Enhancing women’s economic empowerment (WEE) and tackling unpaid care (UC) in Ethiopia possible.  We also acknowledge our gratitude to our partners; WISE for capacity strengthening of key policy actors, and Addis PowerHouse for strengthening the in-country coalition of key WEE champions.

Reference

1. Berhane, Y., Worku, A., Tewahido, D., Fasil, N., Gulema, H., Tadesse, A. W., & Abdelmenan, S. (2019). Adolescent Girls’ Agency Significantly Correlates With Favourable Social Norms in Ethiopia—Implications for Improving Sexual and Reproductive Health of Young Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 64(4), 52-59
2. Bicchieri, C. (2017). Norms in the Wild: How to Diagnose, Measure, and Change Social Norms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
3. Geleta, D., Birhanu, Z., Kaufman, M., & Temesgen, B. (2015). Gender norms and family planning decision-making among married men and women, Rural Ethiopia: A qualitative study. Science Journal of Public Health, 3(2), 242 – 250.
4. Statista website: Gender gap index in Ethiopia in 2022, by sector. Retrieved on 1/9/23 from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1253877/gender-gap-index-in-ethiopia-by-sector/ 
5. The World Bank.  Gender Data Portal: Proportion of women who have ever experienced any form of sexual violence (% of women age 15-49). Retrieved on 1/9/23 from: https://genderdata.worldbank.org/indicators/sg-vaw-afsx-zs/
6. Rizavi, S. S. and C. Sofer (2010), “Household Division of Labour: Is There Any Escape From Traditional Gender Roles?”Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques, L’Atelier Paris1-Le Caire, Cairo.