General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWomen put in 12.5 billions of hours ($10.8 trillion) of unpaid, undervalued care work.
The report, called Time to Care, puts a spotlight on those who care for the young, the sick and the elderly, the vast majority of whom are women and girls working long hours for little or no pay. Globally, women provide 12.5 billion hours a day of care work without pay, which the Oxfam report calculates adds at least $10.8 trillion of value to the economy every year. This work is undervalued socially and economically, but, the report says, It also lays the foundations in society that make possible enormous economic wealth accrued by others and helps to generate enormous economic wealth.
Gowland gave the example of a woman in rural Zimbabwe who has to walk four hours a day to fetch water for her family. The consequences of that are really obvious, she said. Girls are pulled out of school to do this unpaid care work, women cant access fair, decent jobs and wages, and the biggest thing is the fact that they just dont have time to contribute to societies, to any kind of political discourse or engagement with how their societies are run.
This care crisis is not just affecting developing countries. The U.S. child care system, for example, is costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars a year in lost wages and lost opportunities, according to a report published Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Child care providers in America are overwhelmed and underpaid, with a median wage of $12 an hour, according to the reports findings. Meanwhile, parents, most often women, are being forced to give up work or turn down better-paying jobs because of the expense of child care.
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5e20db1bc5b674e44b94eca5
AJT
(5,240 posts)People who care for our children deserve decent pay. How do parents pay for that if they, themselves, make less than childcare workers? It's a huge problem.
SunSeeker
(51,367 posts)The article at the link is actually about income inequality. I just highlighted this subpart. The article makes lots of suggestions. Childcare should be government funded.