life

If women were paid for all the extra work they do, they’d earn €47,000 more in their lifetimes

Published 17:34 22 Sept 2016 BST

Her

If women were paid for all the extra work they do, they’d earn €47,000 more in their lifetimes

Add us as a preferred source on Google »

Here's some depressing, enraging news - a young woman entering the job market today can expect to do almost four years more work than her male peers over her working lifetime.

This is according to a new report entitled 'Not Ready, Still Waiting' by the charity Action Aid, which is being presented at the United Nations General Assembly this week. The report argues that the time women around the world spend on paid and unpaid labour amounts to an extra month for every year of work. https://twitter.com/ActionAidUK/status/778912484786745349 Action Aid has calculated that if women received a wage for the extra hours they work, then every woman globally would earn a staggering €47,000 (£41,000) more over her lifetime.

"Most men and women combine paid and unpaid work during their lives," the report reads. "When they finish their paid working day running businesses, working for their employers, doing agricultural labour or selling fish at local markets, they return to their homes and do chores, look after families, and much more. However, discriminatory social norms mean that it is men who are much more likely to be mostly engaged in paid work, while women do more - a lot more - of the unpaid work, mainly in the form of caring for families and homes."

https://twitter.com/ActionAidUSA/status/778976617351745537 The report analysed 217 developed and developing countries, and found that women’s average additional hours of unpaid work over the global life expectancy for women (69 years) came to around 23 working years. All of that unpaid work means women, globally, have "less time to go to school, participate in politics, get a decent job and relax. This, campaigners stress, "is a violation of their human rights." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gZhyTV18Wg&feature=youtu.be

“We do not mean to suggest that all unpaid work, including unpaid care work, should be remunerated, or to ascribe a monetary value to unpaid care, which includes what we believe to be intrinsically invaluable activities, such as loving and nurturing children and family,” said Girish Menon, CEO of ActionAid UK. “Rather, ActionAid believes women’s unpaid work should be recognised, reduced and redistributed – between women and men, and between the household and the state."

Explore more on these topics:

women

work

Here's some depressing, enraging news - a young woman entering the job market today can expect to do almost four years more work than her male peers over her working lifetime.

"Most men and women combine paid and unpaid work during their lives," the report reads. "When they finish their paid working day running businesses, working for their employers, doing agricultural labour or selling fish at local markets, they return to their homes and do chores, look after families, and much more. However, discriminatory social norms mean that it is men who are much more likely to be mostly engaged in paid work, while women do more - a lot more - of the unpaid work, mainly in the form of caring for families and homes."

“We do not mean to suggest that all unpaid work, including unpaid care work, should be remunerated, or to ascribe a monetary value to unpaid care, which includes what we believe to be intrinsically invaluable activities, such as loving and nurturing children and family,” said Girish Menon, CEO of ActionAid UK. “Rather, ActionAid believes women’s unpaid work should be recognised, reduced and redistributed – between women and men, and between the household and the state."