CULTURE | ECONOMY | AFRICA | ASIA | MIDDLE EAST
Inequality at Home: Household Labour, Education and the Labour Force in the Middle East,
North Africa, and South Asia
WORDS BY JOSHUA EDWICKER | EDWICKER@PROXYBYIWI.COM | 29 FEBRUARY 2024
Household labour remains largely carried out by women across the globe. This patriarchal expectation, that it is the role of women to act has house-makers has unfortunately survived into the 21st century, remaining a barrier to gender equality. In the Global South, expectations of women’s role as ‘home-maker’ start young and can damage girls’ attendance in school and subsequent life opportunities. For adults across the Global South and North, the disproportionate gendered split of household labour is damaging for women’s careers and leisure time.
Household labour inequality varies dramatically by region. The most unequal regions are the Middle East and North Africa and South Asia where women perform 6 to 8 times more household labour than men. However, even the regions who achieve the highest levels of gender equality, Europe and North America, exhibit vast inequalities, where around double the household labour is performed by women.
Household labour inequality is highest in low-income countries. This feeds into educational and labour force inequalities. The consequences of these gendered expectations in the Global South will be the crux of this article.
Mahatma Ghandi was an avid proponent of female education, arguing that “If you educate a man, you educate an individual, if you educate a woman, you educate an entire family”. Improving female education enrolment rates has been one of the key policy initiatives of international organisations such as the United Nations since the turn of the 21st century. As such, according to the World Bank, 90% of boys and 89% of girls are in primary or secondary education. However, as children pass through education systems, the attendance gap widens by gender.
When we look at rates of female participation in the labour force, we see a correlation between household labour inequalities and participation in the labour force. According to the World Bank, only 20% of women in the Middle East & North Africa and 24% of women in South Asia are part of the labour force. Gendered expectations in these regions damage girls’ abilities to commit to their education, as their time is spent on household chores from a much earlier age than their male peers. Furthermore, misogyny within the household and educational environments undermine women’s perceptions of self, and diminish self-confidence.
The correlation between household labour inequalities and labour force participation is no accident, simply put the expectation imposed upon women to undergo household task undermines their ability to work and to express their individuality as a whole, which is a tragedy. A study by Ndubuisi Ugwu (2021) et al argues successfully that female education and subsequent involvement in the labour market ‘increases women’s sense of worth … (whilst) educated females are less vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases, human trafficking, child marriage as well as all forms of violence and abuse’.
The home is one of the most important factors determining what one can achieve or avoid in life. It formulates perceptions of self and can situate one within gendered stereotypes. As such, the relationship between adults and their gendered roles, play a crucial formative role in children’s perceptions of self and expectations of others. A society which expects women to take on the vast majority of household tasks, passes onto boys and girls a similar expectation. This is damaging to girls as it can place boundaries on what they feel capable of achieving, or they are themselves expected to spend their spare time on household tasks rather than learning or leisure. It is also harmful for boys, who fail to prepare for the uptake of tasks.
Globally, women carry out 75% of unpaid work; a staggering 11 billion hours a day. The fact that such work is perceived as ‘low-value’ is hugely detrimental to women’s perception of self. Seedat and Ronda, in the study linked above, illustrate how women who undertake at disproportionate amount of the household tasks are vulnerable to higher levels of cortisol – the hormone released when stressed. Stress has been proven to be highly detrimental for all aspects of a person’s health, and in this way, the disproportionate split of household labour can be seen not only as an economic and social issue, but a health issue too.
The cases of Seedat and Ronda highlight another issue that it is often ignored in mainstream economics. Calculations of GDP and other economic measures do not take into account the unpaid work of women. This distorts our understanding of how our social and economic systems work in tandem and may lead to negative policy initiatives. To solve issues around gendered household labour we must value household labour and invest in a more extensive educational and social care system. One policy example is free childcare, which would allow women to return to work if they chose, rather than being placed out of the labour market until a child reaches school age. Another policy, especially in regard to the Global South would be improving access to clean water, electricity and transport networks – defined by the IMF as “engines of liberation”.
Household tasks remain highly gendered and highly unequal. We must work hard as a society to educate, provide alternatives and the infrastructure, to free women from patriarchal expectations and give them the opportunity to pursue education, work and leisure with equitable freedom to men.