Paid and Unpaid Work. Can Policy Improve Gender Inequalities?

Policy Perspectives, 2021

Despite significant improvements in gender equality over the last few decades, the gender pay gap persists. The unequal distribution of unpaid care work is one factor that explains the wage difference between men and women. On average, women spend disproportionally more time on unpaid care work and domestic chores than men, and they are more likely to work part-time, reduce working hours, or turn down promotions due to family responsibilities. This behavior creates a work-experience gap between men and women. Considering that years of work experience may determine wages, this article analyzes the work-experience gap as an underlying cause of the gender pay gap and advocates for family-friendly policies that promote affordable access to child care, paid family leave, and flexible, but predictable, paid work schedules.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 2010

Purpose -The purpose of this report is to summarise policy interventions and realistic strategies for achieving greater gender equality in paid and unpaid work, which were identified during a conference on "Gender equality in paid and unpaid work" held on 8 th December 2009 at the Church House Conference Centre, London, UK. Design/methodology/approach -The conference included four plenary talks and group discussions. The report is based on the presentations and group discussions. Findings -Government policies need to be holistic in the sense that labour market inequalities are often interlinked with inequalities in the home. The current economic recession can be seen as an opportunity to renegotiate work and life arrangements. Originality/value -The papers presented at the conference included original qualitative and quantitative research by researchers from several social science disciplines. The participants in the group discussions were academics, policy makers, pressure groups, practitioners and third-sector workers, and thus provided a variety of different viewpoints.

2007

Unpaid work in Italy is very unevenly distributed by gender with women bearing the main responsibility of care and housework even when they are employed. This paper investigates more in depth the uneven distribution of unpaid work in Italian couples by using a matched data set that allows us to analyse jointly different types of factors affecting unpaid working hours. By using this matched data set it is possible to relate unpaid work to family income and to analyse its distribution between the partners according to their employment conditions and family structure. According to this analysis women's perception of heaviness of unpaid work is higher when unpaid work is combined with paid working time as descriptive analysis on ISTAT multipurpose survey data show. Factors that contribute to a decrease in women's unpaid work in double earners families are related to women's employment condition. Women in bue collar positions employed in manufacturing do more hours of unpaid work and unpaid work increases at low income level. The latter can be connected to the attempt by women of increasing with their unpaid work household's well being at low income levels.

Demographic Research, 2011

This publication is part of the proposed Special Collection "Intergenerational family ties in Europe: Multiple linkages between individuals, families and social contexts", edited by Pearl Dykstra.

Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Oeconomica

Unpaid labour, including care labour is mostly performed by women. Economic theories explain differences in allocation of time between women and men in various ways – neoclassical theories point to the rational choice associated with the varying efficiency of women and men both in the labour market and in the household, while heterodox theories point to the influence of norms, social values and traditions, according to which the man is the breadwinner and the woman the caregiver. Unpaid labour is often called home duties or responsibilities, and even though it is very difficult, tiring and demanding, it is not valued and respected. The main objective of this paper is to present the importance of unpaid care work in the economy and propose the reconsideration of economic policies.

Gender remains strongly associated with women’s and men’s patterns of unpaid work. The amount of time invested in unpaid work as opposed to paid work, the distribution of unpaid work time among specific tasks, and the patterns of care and responsibility are all determined to a large degree by one’s gender. Women continue to spend more time than men on housework, whether they are employed or not; they continue to do more of the work involved in caring for children and to take more responsibility for that work; and finally, women’s volunteer activities are more likely to be related to family than are men’s. There have been numerous attempts to explain the gendered patterns of time spent on housework and childcare and, although there is support for each of them, none can fully account for the gendered patterns of unpaid work time. The gender display approach offers some hope for better understanding the relationship between gender and unpaid work time, but efforts to evaluate its usefulness are necessarily indirect. That is, there is no simple way to determine the extent to which unpaid work time is an expression of gender; we can only determine whether a particular pattern is consistent with the gender display model. It remains clear that the nature of women’s and men’s participation in housework, childcare and volunteer work are different and that changes in women’s labor force participation are not sufficient to eliminate gender differences in unpaid work activities.

A large body of empirical evidence documents the gender variation in labour market outcomes. A major factor that contributes to persistent gender gaps in labour market performance is women's traditional role in the household. Child-related absences from work imply that women accumulate less job experience, are more prone to career discontinuities and, hence, suffer a motherhood penalty. We highlight how the fundamental gender-driven career/family conflict faced by workers in the labour market may create a normative justification for parental leave rules as a means to enhance efficiency and alleviate the gender pay gap.

Work, Employment and Society, 2019

This article uses data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study to describe how contemporary British couples divide a range of work types. Our findings support the hypothesis, suggested by previous authors, that a shared egalitarian ideology is required for gender equality in divisions of work. In response to bargaining theories, the article also hypothesises that differentials in educational attainment within couples are more strongly associated with gender divisions of work when a couple’s gender ideology is in conflict. Interaction analysis does not support this hypothesis.

Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2000

This paper discusses the views that British men and women hold about gender roles. Drawing on a survey with over 4,000 university students and interviews with professional men and women, it is suggested that, while the majority of both genders are moving toward an egalitarian model of gender roles, men's views are more likely than women's to be constrained by an essentialist model of gender. The data presented indicate that men were more likely than were women to endorse traditional gender roles, to regard women as better equipped for child care than men, to believe that women's advances necessarily disadvantage men. and to believe that men's work opportunities have worsened in comparison to women's. Drawing on both the interviews and the survey, it is also argued that beliefs about gender roles tend to be mediated by individualist discourses. which exempt exceptional individuals from nonnative gender roles.