A staggering sixteen trillion dollars is missing from the global economy each year, according to researchers of a report commissioned by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). This estimate includes the value of the unpaid work performed by women and men and the underpayment of women's work in the market at prevailing prices. Of this US $16 trillion, $11 trillion is the "invisible" contribution of women.
This undervaluation of women's work not only undermines women's purchasing power, says the Human Development Report 1995, it also reduces women's already low social status in many countries, as well as their right to own property and acquire credit from financial institutions.
Published annually since 1990, the report examines the worldwide progress of people and provides country-by-country comparisons on a broad range of social and economic indicators. This year's Human Development Report takes an extensive look at gender inequalities the economic and social gaps between women and men.
"There is an unwitting conspiracy on a global scale to undervalue women's work and contributions to society," says Mahbub ul Haq, principal author of the report. "In virtually every country of the world, women work longer hours than men, yet share less in the economic rewards. If women's work were accurately reflected in national statistics, it would shatter the myth that men are the main breadwinners of the world."
The study analyzed the amount of time women and men spend on paid and unpaid household and community work in 31 countries across the world, including countries classified as industrial, developing and "transition economies" in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The countries were selected on the basis of available and reliable data.
Key overall findings include:
In both the developing and industrialized world, men receive the lion's share of income and recognition for their economic contributions while most of women's work remains unpaid, unrecognized and undervalued.
Women work longer hours than men in nearly every country. Of the total burden of paid and unpaid work, women bear an average of 53% in developing countries and 51% in industrial countries.
In industrial countries, roughly two-thirds of women's total work burden is spent on unpaid activities, and one-third on paid activities. For men, the shares are reversed.
In developing countries, two-thirds of women's total work is also spent in unpaid labor. But less than one-quarter of men's work is unpaid.
Key findings among the nine developing countries studied include:
Women work longer hours than men in every country, an average of 13% more. The difference ranges from as little as eight minutes a day in the Republic of Korea to almost three hours a day in rural Kenya, the equivalent of more than 45 'round-the-clock days every year.
While men normally spend less than a quarter of their work time in unpaid activities, such as child care, there are large variations. Men in Venezuela spend about 13% of their time on unpaid work; for men in the Republic of Korea, 44% of their productive time is unpaid.
The disparity between rural and urban areas is startling. To begin with, the total work day is 20% longer in rural as compared to urban areas. Moreover, women in rural areas spend an average of 20% more time than men working; in urban areas they spend 6% more time.
Key findings among the 14 industrial countries studied include:
Total work time for men and women in industrial countries is about 20% less than in developing countries. The longest workdays are put in by women in Italy and the shortest by men and women in The Netherlands.
There are significant variations in the proportions of time spent on paid and unpaid activities. Women's share of total unpaid work is 81% in Italy; in Finland and Germany it is 64%. Men's share of paid work ranges from 58% in Denmark to 73% in Italy.
When comparing the proportion of time that men and women spend on paid and unpaid activities, Denmark shows the least inequality and Italy the most.
The study identified other factors that are often overlooked in evaluating women's work, such as the labor intensity of household tasks in the developing world. For instance, because women in Kenya are the primary gatherers of fuelwood and water (as is the case in most developing countries), they work an average of ten times the hours of men performing these tasks. This carries over to Kenyan girls, who spend seven times as many hours as adult males.
The labor intensity and inequality of women's work is further exacerbated by environmental degradation. In the Sudan, for example, deforestation has meant that time spent gathering fuelwood has increased fourfold in a decade.
Another factor that can impact unpaid work, particularly for women, is the number of children in a family. Among industrial countries, the study found that married women who are employed and have children under age 15 carry the heaviest work burden of any group-almost 11 hours a day.
The study also looked at historical data and found a general trend toward greater equalization of work between men and women, though this seemed not to be the case in several countries undergoing economic restructuring in Eastern Europe and the CIS. For instance in Kyrgyzstan, women work an average of 76 hours per week as compared to 59 hours for men. The total work of employed women increased 1.5% from 1980 to 1990, because of the increase in household work as economic conditions worsened.
The report does not suggest that a price tag be attached to every activity within a family or a community. It acknowledges that a monetary value cannot be placed on some of the best things in life. But it does advocate that women's contributions to family and community development be properly recognized so that their positions are not undermined in important economic transactions such as property ownership or offering collateral for bank loans. "It is unjust to regard women as economic non-entities when they produce a major part of the global output, both directly and indirectly, both through their own work and joint production with their spouses," says Mahbub ul Haq. "Fully recognizing women's economic contribution will completely change all the traditional socioeconomic premises on which we have erroneously founded our gender relations."
