Topic: 2024-Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Country: Peru
Delegate Name: Pearl Chandel
Women have difficulty getting jobs that can pay the bill due to their gender. Women spend most of their days cleaning, cooking, or caring for the young or elderly. 7.5 hours of women’s days are spent doing domestic work, however a man has an average of 3.7 hours daily. The financial work differs in time too. Women spend about 4 hours a day on a paid job, men spend about 6.9 hours on paid work. Women spend an hour more than men and most of the time they don’t get paid for it. When covid hit in 2020 the difference in time spent working got worse. The 82% of households that have women take on most of the unpaid work make it so the women have fewer chances to increase their income or their independence from their families. 51% of working-age women earn only 75% of what men make. When a woman has her first child an average of 41% of women leave their jobs. The women get 49 days before and after a baby is born. The days can fluctuate if more than one baby is born or there have been complications with the pregnancy. For a woman to fully get paid for her time off, she has to work three months straight before her leave.
The progress for women’s inclusion in labor started in 1990 when they reformed customary laws which before restricted women’s right to work, have banking or financial services, and lastly to inherit/own assets. From 2000-2014 %58 to 68% of women increased working financial jobs. The participation from women increased the GDP by a lot which caused us to have one of the fastest-growing economies in Latin America. To help lower the wage gap Peru has enacted law no. 30709 which is a law that prohibits wage discrimination between women and men. The law has employer rules to follow to determine the right pay for the position and the person’s qualifications.
Peru believes in having more inclusivity regarding jobs that can financially support women and their families and have men take a load off of women’s domestic work. We believe that to fix these problems we can create laws that force employers to pay women by their education and qualifications and not their gender. This means that women will be paid the full wage that a man makes all over Peru. We need to expand childcare so that 51% of women who quit after having their first child can still be a mother while being financially independent. The men of Peru need to pick up some of the workload that women take on. Most of the day women spend on domestic work and that can be a burden as well as taking time out of their day for their time or financial work. To break traditional norms we need to ask less of women and more of men who could be helping their wives complete equal work.
