Carolina Gomez Mena
La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, November 3, 2024, p. 8
In Latin America and the Caribbean, more than half of women have dependents and do not participate in the formal labor market due to family care responsibilities, and in the case of the poorest households the gap widens. , establishes the manual The gender perspective in care infrastructures in Latin America and the Caribbean. The analysis prepared by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and UN Women adds that women carry out on average three times as much care work as men in the region and exposes the need for the design of care systems. care is done from a comprehensive and gender perspective to modify the traditional sexual division of labor.
The study states that, in November 2022, during the 15th Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Argentina, the member states approved the Buenos Aires Commitment, which guides political action in the coming years to advance towards a society of care.
Unops and UN Women highlight the urgency of creating agendas around care and the development of comprehensive systems in the field, which include infrastructure works, equipment and services that respond to the need. unequal distribution of domestic work between women and men and the care deficit that countries face
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It specifies that the so-called care crisis
is due to the increase in life expectancy in Latin America and the Caribbean, which in demographic terms has meant an increase in the number of adult population requiring care and is also explained by the massive incorporation of women into the labor market –mainly informal – starting in the 90s.
This has produced tension in women with tasks that are socially assigned to them, which is why this sector is now responsible for producing, but they also maintain their role in reproductive tasks, which leads to an overload that limits their autonomy and consumes their time.
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The disadvantageous situation that women experience in relation to care tasks is exacerbated by the deficiency in infrastructure, equipment and services that the territories have to alleviate and redistribute these tasks. The incorporation of women into the labor market produces a commodification of care and domestic work that becomes paid work and, in most cases, precarious.
The document highlights that care continues to be associated with women due to a stereotyped social mandate and a biological vision that ignores the social, cultural and political influences that also contribute to gender construction and inequality.
