Topic: 2024-Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Country: Mexico
Delegate Name: Ishitha Turlapati
According to United Nations Women, unpaid care and domestic labor refers to work done by family members in the home for the maintenance and well-being of the family. This work predominantly falls on women. Worldwide, women do 74.6% of the work while men do 23.6% of unpaid care and domestic labor. Sometimes, women go to a demanding nine-to-five job, come home, and do all the household work. This not only impacts women in low-income and rural areas but also in urban areas. It is important to recognize and address unpaid care work, as it is critical for achieving gender equality. When women spend the majority of their time on unpaid labor, they often sacrifice opportunities for education, employment, and financial independence, perpetuating cycles of poverty and inequality.
At the international level, several actions have been taken to deal with unpaid care and domestic work. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 1995, recognized unpaid care and work as a major obstacle toward women’s empowerment and called for policy measures that reduce the burden through public services and infrastructure and shared responsibilities between men and women. The ILO Resolution on Decent Work and the Care Economy, 2024, continues to advocate for more investment in the care economy to help reduce these gender gaps. In addition, other organizations, like Oxfam International, have released reports, such as the Time to Care report, which highlights the economic importance of unpaid care work, urging countries to adopt national care systems that would help redistribute some of this work. For example, ActionAid has pursued activities focused on providing accessible child care and community-based support mechanisms seeking to reduce unpaid workload burdens by women, particularly in rural settings.
In Mexico, the issue of unpaid care work has an immense social and economic effect. Women make a potential contribution of 24.3% to the national GDP through their unpaid labor; however, most of this work is undervalued and goes unseen. The government of Mexico, working with international organizations like UN Women and the ILO, established a program called Closing Gaps. The initiative aimed to set up a National Care System, including social security plans for domestic workers and pilot initiatives for agricultural laborers, thereby reaching more than 54,000 domestic workers by the year 2024. The #EsLoJusto (It is Only Fair) campaign was launched as an essential part of this movement to help bring awareness about the work and the rights of domestic workers, especially women. However, while these policies are a step forward, significant cultural and infrastructural challenges remain, especially in rural areas where support services are extremely underresourced.
Mexico proposes a set of solutions that can be applied both at the level of the UN and individually by the member states. Recognizing the economic value of unpaid care work by adding it to national accounts like GDP, would help show the full contribution women make to the economy through their work. Mexico further calls for a Global Care Economy Fund to help support developing countries in building the infrastructures of care and in implementing policies that would redistribute unpaid work of care. Furthermore, Mexico highlights the necessity of public awareness campaigns aimed at challenging societal norms regarding caregiving and promoting the equitable distribution of responsibilities within households.
These solutions are key to achieving gender equality and breaking the cycles of inequality and poverty that hit women particularly hard. Addressing the root causes of unpaid care and domestic work, such as deep-seated cultural norms and lack of infrastructure, will lead to an equitable society. Mexico believes that not only will these measures bring benefits to women, but they will also increase general economic growth and social welfare.
Sources:
https://un-dco.org/stories/closing-gaps-social-protection-women-workers-mexico
https://www.nadja.co/2024/07/25/mothers-drive-unpaid-domestic-labour-mexico/#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20the%20economic%20value,backbone%20of%20the%20country’s%20economy.
https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/620928/bp-time-to-care-inequality-200120-en.pdf
https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/wcmsp5/groups/public/%40ed_norm/%40relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_921863.pdf
https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Field%20Office%20ESEAsia/Docs/Publications/2017/01/Unpaid-Care-and-Domestic-Work-EN.pdf
https://caribbean.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Field%20Office%20Caribbean/Attachments/Publications/PFA_E_Final_WEB.pdf
https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Field%20Office%20ESEAsia/Docs/Publications/2017/01/Unpaid-Care-and-Domestic-Work-EN.pdf
