70 percent of people who work as paid and unpaid care workers are women
The “Through the eyes of women: Care economy” conference was organized by MONFEMNET National Network NGO on May 10. Care work is defined as looking after the physical, psychological, emotional and developmental needs of one or more people and this conference was held to discuss about the economy around this topic. MONFEMNET National Network has been organizing the “Through the eyes of women” conference since 2006 and this year’s conference was organized with the funding from the Asia Foundation, Global Affairs Canada and Mongolian Women’s Fund in cooperation with the European Union and UNDP.
The conference usually gathers 200 to 450 people working towards women’s and human rights, who are civil servants, researchers, international development organizations, civil society organizations, activists, public and private enterprises and media organizations and discusses about all things human rights. Care economy conference, this year, discussed about “Reasons why young women can’t participate in the economy”, “Mothers with salary”, “Work settings: work opportunities for women with disabilities” and “Women microentrepreneurs: Limits to loan”.
70 percent of people in the care economy who are paid and unpaid are women. 71 percent of these workers take care of children, and about 65 percent of them take care of elderly and sick people. If women spend 73.5 hours per month on child care, this labor should be valued at 176,400 MNT at minimum, finds the conference discussions. In addition, women perform unpaid work three times more than men, and the amount of unpaid work performed by people over 15 years of age is equal to eight to 15 percent of our country’s GDP, according to the National University of Mongolia. It was also said that the labor force participation of men in all age groups is higher than that of women, especially in the age group of 25 to 39 years.
The participants of the conference pointed out that this increases income inequality between men and women, harms society and families, and is one of the main reasons for divorce. Therefore, it is necessary to strive to reduce gender inequality in the household and workplace and to improve the value of women’s work. Mongolia should create an opportunity to increase the level of participation of women in the workforce to 63.2 percent. The conference highlighted that if the annual growth rate per woman of working age is increased by 0.5 percent, it will be possible to increase the GDP by 16.1 percent in 30 years. In other words, if women’s contribution to the care economy is focused on society, and if the level of women’s participation in the labor force is improved, there will be positive changes not only in the households, but also in the society.