Topic: 2024-Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Country: Greece
Delegate Name: Monia Abbas
Topic: 2024-Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
Country: Greece
Delegate Name: Monia Abbas
Unpaid care and domestic work refers to the fact that women who are actively working such as cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry, and taking care of others like their children or parents of theirs or their spouses are not paid. Women for decades have been given the responsibility to become caretakers and as such have never even thought about getting paid for the work that makes up the vast majority of their lives.
Greece women spend an average of 282 minutes, or over four and a half hours, looking after the house, shopping, cooking, and taking care of children, compared with 59 minutes for men making Greece the European country where men do least. According to a magister thesis written in the spring semester of 2023 by a student named Anastasia Vogiatzi from Umeå University, Umeå Centre for Gender Studies, “Women dedicate nearly three times more than men daily to housework, even when employed in paid jobs. Age-wise, the gender gap persists, increasing with age. Core household tasks such as cooking, house cleaning, and laundry are dominated by women, while men spend more time on activities like gardening and repairs.” There are many more statistics that support this fact such as how women and girls aged 15+ spend 18.1% of their time on unpaid care and domestic work, compared to 7% spent by men. “The traditionally patriarchal Greek family views education as a paramount priority for its members. Until World War II it used to promote education of its male members. Afterwards, however, modernization of ways of thinking, state education policies and socioeconomic advancement led to increased participation of women in the education system (Asimaki and Vergidis 2013). Still, despite their educational level and chances for a prosperous career, Greek women until the 1950s had been trapped in the ideal of domesticity” as is said by the directorate general for internal policies, Policy department c: citizens’ rights and constitutional affairs. Culturally because it is something that everyone has come to think of as usual, it is normalized to the point where while citizens may see a problem, they would not know why a solution is needed.
As this is an issue taking place in many countries, Greece believes that there needs to be a basic solution that each country can take and bend to their will to create a proposition that will fit the needs of their citizens and their needs. As per Greece’s needs, we believe that there needs to be more childcare centers built so that it is easier for women to find a place to have their children taken care of while they work as well as create a new parental leave policy that will be put in place for both men and women to decrease the stress of having a offspring. We also encourage every woman who has had children or plans to have them to communicate what they believe is necessary or would be appreciated to decrease the number unpaid care taking place and increase the number of women in the workplace.
