Topic:
Country: Israel
Delegate Name: Taylor Winkelman
Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
City High School
Israel
Taylor Winkelman
In many countries and societies, care work is seen as “women’s work”. Women make up a majority of the workers that partake in domestic and care work. If women were paid minimum wage for care work, the industry would be valued at 11 trillion dollars. This work is what most consider to be housework and childcare, but it is nevertheless critical to the functioning of societies. Some of those societies perpetuate the idea that women are solely responsible for household upkeep and childcare. In Egypt, women do 24 hours of unpaid care work a week with a female’s time to male’s time spent ratio of 12:1. Countless other countries follow this same trend of women pulling all the weight.
In developing countries, the situation is stressed even more, as women are expected to fetch food and water. In Nepal, the time it takes to retrieve basic human resources deters many women from joining the workforce. Working women across the world struggle with balancing their home life with care work, which creates disparage between men seeking higher paying jobs and women seeking higher paying jobs. Women spend 62 hours on paid and unpaid work a week in India, while men spend only 48 hours.
Israel has supported countless resolutions by the United Nations, including the Beijing Platform and Declaration for Action, which outlines helping girls receive a 12-year education. Education will give women opportunities to join the workforce and to get paid for the work they do. The effects of many resolutions from th United Nations and other international organizations have increased women’s literacy rate from 80 percent in 1995 to 90 percent now. With more initiatives to close the gap between men’s and women’s contributions to domestic and care work, Israel believes we can get closer to equality inside and outside the workforce
Works Cited
“Gender norms and unpaid work – UNICEF DATA.” UNICEF Data, https://data.unicef.org/topic/gender/gender-norms-and-unpaid-work/. Accessed 27 November 2024.
Hasson, Yael, and Noga Dagan Buzaglo. “The Care Deficit in Israel: What it Means and How it Can be Reduced.” Adva Center, February 2019. Accessed 27 November 2024.
UNICEF. “A new era for girls.” 04 March 2020, https://data.unicef.org/resources/a-new-era-for-girls-taking-stock-of-25-years-of-progress/. Accessed 27 November 2024.
“Unpaid care and domestic work | POWER Project.” POWER Project, https://powerproject.actionaid.org/module/unpaid-care-and-domestic-work/. Accessed 27 November 2024.
