'care work done by poor women is worth 10.8 trillion US dollars: 3X bigger than whole tech industry'

[Donkees]

Oxfam's 'Time to Care' report shows global wealth founded on inequality - Jan. 19, 2020


''underpaid and unpaid work by women and girls adds three times more to the global economy each year than the whole technology industry together.''

Lawson says Oxfam’s annual report examines the relationship “between billionaires and the super, super rich people at the top of the global economy, and the people at the bottom, particularly the hundreds of millions of poor women who spend billions of hours a day, in caring for the sick, caring for the elderly, cooking, cleaning…”

Unseen and unrewarded contribution by women
It’s a pun on the word “care”, he says, because “it’s this foundation of unpaid work done by the poorest women that generates enormous wealth for the economy.”

Lawson notes that in the report it is calculated that the combined contribution to the global economy of all this care work done by poor women is worth 10.8 trillion US dollars: that’s three times bigger than the whole tech industry - three times bigger than Google, Facebook, all of them put together.

“It is this unseen and unrewarded contribution by women that creates enormous wealth that is sucked upward into the bank accounts of the richest people and of the billionaires,” he says.

That wealth generated by the world’s poorest women, he explains, “is encapsulated and concentrated in the hands of a tiny number of people who are predominantly men.”

'Billionaire boom'
Lawson expresses his belief that the world would be much better off without the current “billionaire boom” phenomenon.

Gender equality and economic equality go hand in hand
Lawson concludes noting that the current economy, that gives an extreme amount of wealth to a tiny group of people at the top is also a deeply sexist economy: “It’s an economy that is built on the backs of women and of poor women and their labour, whether it’s poorly paid labour or even unpaid labour, it is a sexist economy and it’s a broken economy, and you can only fix the gap between the rich and the poor if at the same time you fix the gap between women and men.”

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/world/news/2020-01/oxfam-annual-report-unpaid-work-poor-women.html

https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/issues/extreme-inequality-and-poverty/

[flying_wahini]

1. Years ago when I was a home health/hospice nurse I worked for several Billionaires

and also cared for across the board socioeconomic patients.

Billionaires were usually fine to work with but were predictably much more demanding.
Most of them were petty and cheap. Always expecting something for nothing.

I made a decent living but give me the inner city neighborhoods Anytime. I really loved my work. I learned about public health discrepancies that way and
how devalued family caregivers are.
I will also note that I always felt welcomed and appreciated
when I worked in poor neighborhoods.

I think that all high schoolers should be required to do community health rotations in clinics
and several hours of Public Health Service before they can graduate.
They would all end up strong liberals, believe me.

[mopinko]

4. i did hospice work as a volunteer. i loved i but

the reason i had the job is that medicare demands that 5% (i think. i want to say 10. i think certains jobs it is.) of patient contact hours be volunteers.
this is one of many reasons i think m4a is a suck ass brand.

i'm a pretty wealthy woman. was for a long time when i was married, and still am divorced. but w/o all my unpaid hours, i wouldnt be. and neither would my ex.
i've worked all my life, i just rarely got paid for it. not just as a mom, but for many, many causes.
i was the kind of woman st ronnie tried so hard to shove into the pink collar ghetto.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. In a new era of abundant knowledge and capital, both physical and monetary

are we headed to a point where labor will be rewarded? If the economy ran on recycled capital, seems to me the pie could be bigger and more equitably divided.

[maliaSmith]

3. equal pay for women

This information is why we must pass again the ERA so women are treated as equals in all senses.
Luckily I worked for the US Gov for 44 years and women are paid the same as men. In private industry, they aren't and this is why we must fight for equality. If more women who vote for the GOP cared about this, we might get it done.
PS Boycott all businesses who display the Chamber of Commerce membership placard at their business. Chamber of C, has started again giving money to all the GOP who voted to overturn our election. The C of C also don't support women's rights or voting rights. As Stacy Abrams said, in all GOP states that are taking away voting rights, call their corporate sponsors and push them to come out against all these Jim Crow laws. Check each state for which big corporations are based there and call them to support anti racist voting rules not the Jim Crow ones.

[niyad]

6. Welcome to our DU family. And thanks for the reminder about the CofC, big business lobbying

group, to my mind. And YES to ERA.

(I see in your profile that you are a gardener and a chef. Have you had a chance to check out those forums?)

[BobTheSubgenius]

13. Welcome indeed!

I haven't seen anyone so near the start of their DU "life." I use that word advisedly; DU becomes one of the focal points of members' lives.

And, though it's hardly my place to say it, you're off to a very good start.

[niyad]

5. Thank you for posting this enormously important and informative article. Despite the fact that

numerous studies over decades have shown how much women's unpaid/poorly paid work adds to the economies, very little has changed.

Would you consider cross-posting this excellent O p in Women's Rights And Issues? Thanks in advance.

[Donkees]

7. You are free to post it there as your own, modify excerpts, and carry on the conversation :)

[niyad]

8. I would, but my computer glitch will not allow me to link, or copy and paste.,so I must ask for

your kind assistance.

[Donkees]

11. Will do :)

[zentrum]

9. K for visibility

[Hermit-The-Prog]

10. We can use our collective power -- unions, government -- to prevent the parasites from taking all.

People should be tired of carrying all of the filthy rich. We build the infrastructure that the parasites depend on to suck the wealth we generate.

[SunSeeker]

12. And they're not being paid the value of their work, hence their poverty. nt

[dlk]

14. America uses the free and low paid labor of women as the safety net

Our country’s history of slavery has affected our widespread acceptance of this situation.