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During a TED talk given by Gala Díaz Langou, director of the Center for the Implementation of Public Policies for Equity and Growth of Argentina (CIPPEC), the expert He invited the public to imagine the following scenario. “The refrigerators or refrigerators are empty. The bathrooms, filthy. There are clothes thrown everywhere (…) We hear babies crying loudly. We go out to the street and there are kids wandering alone. Didn't anyone pick them up from school? It's not a zombie attack. This apocalypse could be generated if one day we women wake up and decide not to do what we do every day.”
The panorama that Díaz painted explains the important role played by the care economy, a broad approach that not only wants all care tasks to be better recognized – both paid and unpaid – but also argues that these tasks are what support society itself and that, for the most part, are on the shoulders of women. “The capitalist system is sustained by women's time as an implicit resource for the reproduction of the workforce, capital and society as a whole,” is how the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean also puts it, ECLAC, in a report. Well, the world, as we know it, works because women take care of: whether it be the sick, the children, the husbands, the elderly, the house or the planet. The missing piece is that few have the time to take care of themselves.
Latin America is no exception. “Caregiving is also the most obvious expression of profound gender inequality throughout the world, and especially in Latin America and the Caribbean,” comments Cecilia Alemany, deputy regional director of UN Women for the Americas and the Caribbean. On average, based on the countries for which there is data, ECLAC estimates that women dedicate between 22 and 42 hours per week to domestic work and care activities, which implies a burden of up to three times more than that of men. men. Furthermore, while approximately 60% of women who live in a home where there are children under 15 years of age declare that they do not participate in the labor market because they already have a sufficient burden of attending to family responsibilities, in homes without children and girls the figure is only 18%.
This is an economic sector that matters. In fact, ECLAC also indicates that only unpaid domestic and care work is crucial for the region's economies, representing on average 21.3% of GDP, with women contributing 75.5%. That is why it is no surprise that many experts and academics are pushing for the care economy to become one of the flags of the region. At the end of last year, a report by the OECD, the European Commission, CAF and, again, ECLAC, identified four strategic sectors in which Latin America and the Caribbean should invest, including the care economy among them. And as Ana Güezmes García, director of the Gender Affairs Division of ECLAC, told América Futura, the Commission “highlights the care economy as one of the ten promising areas to transform development models, boosting growth and reducing inequalities.” of genre”.
A booster of the economy
The proposals that the care economy brings are varied, and not only have to do with the economy itself, but with a profound change in how we see the roles of women and men in society. But when asking Paula Herrera Idárraga, director of the Public Employment Service, a unit attached to the Colombian Ministry of Labor, how care energizes the economy, her response is key. It is actually a chain of events. For example – and this is a simplified example – if childcare is guaranteed by the public, women will have a better chance of entering the workforce, they will earn a salary, they will spend it as a consumer and they will even start paying taxes. . Thus, thousands of women would be able to enter the workforce, boosting the economy. Which would make it not only fairer, but stronger. But the issue goes further.
Alemany, of UN Women, says that data from the International Labor Organization “indicates that investing in gender equality in leave, universal childcare and long-term care services could generate up to 299 million jobs.” work between now and 2035″. Furthermore, she comments, “it is estimated that 78% of these new jobs would be occupied by women and 84% would be formal employment. All this implies that a part of the investment would be recovered via taxes and contributions to social security systems.” As Herrera also adds, the care economy is actually an investment and not an expense.
Promoting it, however, involves several challenges. This, of course, is to ensure that women who want to work in other jobs can find someone qualified to take care of their children and that domestic tasks are balanced between men and women. But it is also important that the people who inherit this care work are paid – and well – since it is women with less income who end up assuming this burden. In Latin America – comments Güezmes – 17.8 million people are dedicated to paid domestic work, and 91.1% are women. The alarming thing is that a large part of them are “indigenous women, Afro-descendants, rural women, migrants or refugees. And multiple gender and race discrimination operates there, even more so given that this work is carried out in highly informal and precarious contexts. Approximately 72.3% of them do not have access to formal employment.”
A necessity for an older population
Another of the premises from which the care economy is based is that everyone, at som
e point in life, will need to be cared for. And given the current trend in Latin America where the population will get older, the care economy will be more relevant than ever. In 2022, the report states Aging in Latin America and the Caribbean According to ECLAC, 88.6 million people over 60 years of age lived in the region, representing 13.4%. But by 2030, the figure is expected to rise to 16.5%. “In particular, we are facing an aging of aging, with a rapid increase in the population aged 80 and over, with greater probabilities of being in situations of dependency and with greater needs for long-term care,” comments Güezmes. The problem is that, at the same time, “a reduction is expected in the number of people available to care on an unpaid basis.”
All of these factors, Alemany adds, require that States invest more heavily in comprehensive care systems, and that these go from being separate programs to state policies. “Change will require generating jobs, formalizing existing ones, professionalizing care, promoting coherent governance of these systems and investing in care infrastructure, both from the State and the private sector,” he comments. “Only in this way can we ensure co-responsibility in homes, between the State and the private sector, and an offer of quality public care services, free and accessible to everyone.”
Furthermore, Alejandra Mora, Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) of the OAS, explains that, currently, both Uruguay and Costa Rica have care systems established by law. “Uruguay has been designed and implemented as a Comprehensive Care System (SNIC) and is based on a comprehensive conception of care as a right, through a solidarity model that involves a co-responsibility pact, and is universal in nature.” For example, some of the pillars of the SNIC have been to professionalize care tasks, improve information systems and extend the days of both maternity and paternity leave.
Meanwhile, in Costa Rica, there is the Child Care and Development Network (RedCUDI) – which reaffirms the right to care for children under seven years of age – and in 2021 the Care Policy 2021-2023 was promulgated. In Argentina, Mexico, Paraguay and Peru there are also bills that propose the creation of these care systems. And in Chile, as in Colombia, work is being done on national care systems. In this last country, in addition, the city of Bogotá won the Guangzhou International Urban Innovation Award for the Apples of Care, a network of 21 centers throughout the city focused on serving, educating, caring and making their lives easier. to the caregivers. One of its principles is very simple: freeing women from hours of care burden so that they can use them in other activities, such as working, educating themselves, or simply having time to take care of themselves.
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