Topic: 2024-Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Country: Bangladesh
Delegate Name: Annika Barnas
Country: Bangladesh
Committee: United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC); UN Women
Topic: Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Delegate: Annika Barnas
School: Mattawan High School
Unpaid care and domestic work can be boiled down to a basic definition, it is the unpaid and household-based responsibilities/activities performed by a member of the household. These tasks often include cooking, cleaning, childcare, etc. This has become a gender issue, as the work is performed disproportionately by females and negatively impacts women and girls in many countries. The fact that these responsibilities are carried out primarily by women, results in girls having limited time for learning, development, and leisure; all of which create an environment in which girls and women are less likely to thrive. The factors that perpetuate the traditional roles of gender in domestic work can be economic or sociological. In economics, unpaid domestic work contributes to the overall wellbeing of society; allowing paid workers to participate in the workforce by carrying out domestic tasks. This is a necessary part of a functioning society, but becomes a significant issue when sociological conditions are factored in. Societal expectations of women result in an extremely gendered division of labor, limit women’s ability to fully participate in the workforce, create unequal domestic power distribution, and more.
The United Nations has previously taken action against this issue by collecting and analyzing data concerning the extents of unpaid domestic work, raising awareness about the disproportionate domestic burden placed on women, promoting policies that focus on redistribution of domestic responsibilities, supporting initiatives at the national level that work to promote equal-sharing of responsibilities between genders, etc. Several resolutions have been introduced to address this issue including A/RES/78/150 which was passed in 2023 and called on member states to more equally divide domestic work, and A/RES/77/193 which was passed in 2022 and intensified efforts to eliminate violence against women and address gender stereotypes/negative social norms.
The COVID-19 pandemic increased domestic pressures on Bangladeshi women, closing school and resulting in an approximate 89% of women without leisure time. This also increased the amount of childcare responsibilities placed upon women and girls. Men used the time off to focus on hobbies and leisure activities, whereas women worked about 3.43 times as much as men on domestic tasks. All of this increased marital discord and domestic violence against women.
Bangladesh has attempted to recognize unpaid domestic work and emphasize the value of such work. The Bangladeshi government’s 8th Five-Year Plan included a Gender Equality Strategy whose goal was to equalize the amount of time men and women spend on domestic work. The government also implemented a Women Domestic Policy in 2011 that emphasized the inclusion of women’s domestic labor in national accounts. Finally, the government has instructed the Planning Commission to include unpaid domestic work in the GDP calculations.
Some potential solutions to this problem include, redistribution of domestic tasks between members of the household so that all members share equal responsibilities. Expanding access to affordable childcare, support for elderly and disabled family members, and financial support for women; this would allow women to have more freedom and a reduction of the burden on women. Bangladesh also supports efforts to increase the availability of paid parental leave so that parents of both genders can play a role in raising their children; as well as increasing access to education for women so that they have a better opportunity to participate in the workforce. Finally, expanding the role of women in the making of legislative decisions to allow for more gender-equal policy decisions.
Citations:
https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2024-04/21_Measuring%20the%20Value%20of%20Unpaid%20Household%20Work%20in%20Bangladesh.pdf
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15325024.2023.2259296
https://www.un.org/en/ga/77/resolutions.shtml
https://data.unicef.org/topic/gender/gender-norms-and-unpaid-work/
https://www.un.org/en/ga/78/resolutions.shtml
https://freepolicybriefs.org/2021/12/20/gender-gap-unpaid-care/
