Reducing and Redistributing Unpaid Work: Stronger Policies to Support Gender Equality

By Cristian Alonso, Mariya Brussevich, Era Dabla-Norris, Yuko Kinoshita, Kalpana Kochhar

October 15, 2019

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Cristian Alonso, Mariya Brussevich, Era Dabla-Norris, Yuko Kinoshita, and Kalpana Kochhar. Reducing and Redistributing Unpaid Work: Stronger Policies to Support Gender Equality, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2019) accessed November 23, 2024

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Summary

Unpaid work, such as caring for children, the elderly, and household chores represents a significant share of economic activity but is not counted as part of GDP. Women disproportionately shoulder the burden of unpaid work: on average, women do two more hours of unpaid work per day than men, with large differences across countries. While much unpaid care work is done entirely by choice, constraints imposed by cultural norms, labor market features or lack of public services, infrastructure, and family-friendly policies matter. This undermines female labor force participation and lowers economy-wide productivity. In this paper, we examine recent trends in unpaid work around the world using aggregate and individual-level data, explore potential drivers, and identify policies that can help reduce and redistribute unpaid work across genders. Conservative model-based estimates suggest that the gains from these policies could amount to up to 4 percent of GDP.

Subject: Gender, Gender diversity, Gender inequality, Labor, Labor markets, Women

Keywords: Africa, Care work, Employment status, Female Labor Force Participation, Gender diversity, Gender Equality, Gender inequality, Global, Job matching, Labor markets, Unpaid work, Women, Work arrangement, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

35
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2019/225
Stock No:

WPIEA2019225
ISBN:

9781513514536
ISSN:

1018-5941

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