By Kristalina Georgieva, Cristian Alonso, Era Dabla, and Kalpana Kochhar

As much as half of the world’s work is unpaid.  And most of it is done by women.

This imbalance not only robs women of economic opportunities. It is also costly to society in the form of lower productivity and forgone economic growth. It follows that a fairer allocation of unpaid work would not only benefit women, but would also lead to more efficient work forces and stronger economies.

For these reasons, reducing gender imbalances in unpaid work is part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Examples of unpaid work include cooking, cleaning, fetching food or water, and caring for children and the elderly.  These tasks are not counted as part of economic activity because they are difficult to measure based on values in the marketplace. Yet their economic value is substantial, with estimates ranging from 10 to 60 percent of GDP.

In our new study, we find that unpaid work declines as economic development increases particularly because there is less time spent on domestic chores. Social institutions and values can constrain the redistribution of unpaid work by preventing men from sharing the burden at home.

Unpaid work declines as economic development increases.

Overworked and underpaid

It’s no secret that women disproportionately shoulder the burden of unpaid work. Less well understood is just how many more unpaid hours women put in than men on a given day. Women do 4.4 hours of unpaid work on average around the world and men only 1.7 hours.

There are large differences across countries.

In Norway, the gap is small, with women doing 3.7 hours of unpaid work, while men contribute 3. On the other extreme, in Egypt, women do 5.4 hours per day of unpaid work and men only 35 minutes. In the US, women do 3.8 hours of unpaid work and men do 2.4 hours.

By not fully engaging women, the economy is misallocating resources, having women do low-productivity tasks at home instead of taking advantage of their full potential in the marketplace. It also misses exploiting the complementarity between women and men in the workplace. The result is lower productivity and economic growth. This gender gap in unpaid work is not just unfair. It is clearly inefficient.

Certainly, some unpaid work is done entirely by choice and the value to society of raising children for societies cannot be disputed. But more than 80 percent of unpaid work hours are devoted to domestic chores aside from child and elder care.

Too often women end up shouldering those domestic chores because of constraints imposed by cultural norms, lack of public services and infrastructure, or absence of family-friendly policies.

Women may also choose to stay at home or work only part-time if the wage in the market is too low and does not represent equal pay for equal work.

Engines of liberation

Policies can help reduce and redistribute unpaid work.  In developing economies, measures to improve water supply, sanitation, electricity, and transportation are critical to free women from low-productivity tasks.

UNICEF estimates that women spend 200 million hours per day worldwide simply fetching water. In India, women spend more than an hour every day collecting firewood. Better access to electricity and water and less expensive appliances helped boost female labor force participation in Mexico and Brazil. Expanding internet access to the entire population can help women take advantage of the gig economy and flexible work arrangements.

Governments need to ensure access to education and health care for women. Without proper human capital, women’s possibilities in the labor market are very limited. According to UNESCO, 130 million school-age girls are not in school. It is not only a matter of providing the services, but also guaranteeing their use.

Many families in Pakistan choose not to send girls to school because of security concerns. Enshrining women’s rights in law could help to reshape social institutions and values that prevent access to education and healthcare.

Efficient and flexible labor markets help redistribute unpaid work. Active labor market policies, like those in Switzerland, can facilitate job matching. We find that flexible work arrangements are associated with less female unpaid work and make for a better work-life balance.

All in the family

Family-friendly policies also help. Many Nordic countries invest heavily in early childhood education and care, which allows for high enrollment and fosters women’s ability to return to work after giving birth.

Greater parity in maternal and parental leave policies can raise female labor force participation by smoothing women’s return to work and engaging fathers in care activities early on. Iceland’s parental leave policy is a good example: it sets the length of leave at nine months and earmarks three for each parent.

Reducing and redistributing unpaid work is an economic imperative. Governments must take decisive actions, and the private sector must join in to seize on the large potential gains.

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By Patricia Scotland

Trade wars, protectionism, and nationalist rhetoric are combining to create the possibility of a nightmare debt crisis that could be worse than any previously experienced. Global borrowing is now at the highest levels since the 1950s – and history suggests we should take this as a warning that a debt crisis could be looming. Were one to materialise, it could inflict greater dislocation on international financial systems and national economic stability than ever previously witnessed.

This would be particularly tragic in view of the extraordinary global commitment to delivering the Sustainable Development Goals, and as so many nations seem finally to be in earnest about tackling the causes and impact of the climate crisis. The impact of a parallel crisis in global debt would derail this effort, and could make much-needed international cooperation on poverty and progress impossible. Governments would be consumed by the need to stabilise local economies devastated by unmanageable debt. Yet such a scenario can be averted.

Haunting memories of the economic chaos, poverty and suffering caused by previous debt crises are the reason that the finance ministers of Commonwealth are working together to prevent the needless recurrence of an avoidable crisis. The breadth and inclusiveness of the Commonwealth means that when our member countries meet, many perspectives are brought to the table. These viewpoints can be shared to decisive effect when Commonwealth countries work together to ensure the voices and views of all are taken into account at forums such as the G20 and other international and regional gatherings.

It is no longer feasible for policies on debt, trade and other economic matters to be considered in isolation from the increasingly extensive impacts of climate change, which are becoming more frequent and more stark. Small island states tend to be the most vulnerable to extreme weather and natural disasters, and also to have the least resilience or resources with which to recover from the damage to their infrastructures and economies.

With interest rates at historically low levels, borrowing becomes an attractive proposition yet heightens the concomitant risk of debt ballooning to levels which are unsustainable over the longer term. This situation raises the possibility that countries which have ‘borrowed their way out of trouble’ following a setback will eventually face very severe debt distress. Preventing such eventualities is a global challenge which requires collective and coordinated responses.

The Commonwealth is particularly and perhaps uniquely well-placed to ensure that perspectives and needs of developing nations are fully considered in multilateral discussions on policy for tackling future debt crises. This is the purpose of our Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting which is taking place in Washington DC alongside the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

The ministers of our 53 diverse and widely distributed yet closely connected nations will this year examine proposals designed to improve debt transparency. They will consider ways in which debt contracts can be specially amended to provide relief during disasters. Such initiatives will be supported by collating the perspectives of ministers from developing countries so that their Commonwealth counterparts from countries with advanced economies can carry them forward for the attention of the G20.

The way to a stable and sustainable economic future is for developing and developed countries to work together inclusively on shaping the global debt rules which affect them all. Our Commonwealth approach is to focus on the roles of creditor and indebted countries.

In a country where fiscal regulation is weak, debt may be accumulated in ways that are not transparent, and very seriously to the detriment of its citizens. Those who provide credit in such circumstances are also culpable, and they too must be scrutinised and made to bear responsibility – particularly as those who suffer the most from unsustainable debt and carry the greatest burden at times of crisis tend to be the poor and marginalised – those least able to cope.

Among topics and actions being considered at our 2019 Commonwealth Finance Ministers meeting are:

• Debt Relief – with agreement to be sought for debt contracts with vulnerable countries to include provision for relief if severe natural disaster strikes.
• Transparency in debt through innovation – encouragement to use the Commonwealth Meridian debt management system which helps to improve the accuracy with which government debt is recorded.
• Dialogue on debt – relaunch of the Commonwealth debt management forum to encourage international dialogue on the consequences of over-indebtedness so that sounder debt policies are adopted in order to prevent crises.
• Easier access to financing to reduce debt burdens – through mechanisms and facilities such as the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub and Commonwealth Disaster Finance Portal which offer added capacity for developing countries to access to affordable debt financing.

By working together in such practical ways, and on programmes that draw together a broad and inclusive array of nations, crisis can be averted. It is essential for there to be honest and open collaboration between creditors and debtors in a spirit of trust and goodwill. This the Commonwealth can offer, building on the depth of our connection and the basis of equality on which our family of nations comes together.

Rather than sleep-walking towards yet another debt crisis, and the misery such nightmare reality would bring, the Commonwealth can open up pathways toward horizons of hope, with rich and poor walking in harmony towards a fairer, more secure, more sustainable and more prosperous future in which all can share.

The Writer is the Commonwealth Secretary-General

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