Breaking the Paradigm of Women as Caregivers in the Home and Workplace

When will the paradigm of “women’s work” at home and in the workplace break down? This paradigm entails an unfair division of labor between men and women and restricts women’s role to caregiving, giving rise to gender inequalities, particularly when it comes to education and work. The coronavirus pandemic has made this issue even more pressing. With its ramifications for work conditions and new forms of remote learning, it has placed additional burdens on women while highlighting the problem of unequal gender roles. 

Making women responsible for caregiving in the home poses a challenge to their full enjoyment of rights. To begin with, their role is undervalued. Dismissed as “housewives,” women who do not work outside the home are perceived to be idly relaxing at home. The type of work they perform is viewed as inferior, while men’s role is venerated. Working outside the home in productive labor, the “man of the house” earns an income and provides for his family. The national time usage survey (Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, 2016) shows that women perform an average of six hours of household labor every day, compared to 1 hour and 44 minutes for men. In 2015, the value of unpaid domestic labor in Egypt was estimated at EGP654 billion. Women produce 79% of this value (EGP517 billion) while men produce 21% (EGP137 billion). 

 These figures demonstrate that unpaid household labor has a tangible economic worth and that women’s contribution is greater than men. Data also shows that 33.5% of households are headed by women (CAPMAS, 2017b), meaning that they are the primary income earners, household managers, and decision makers. But these facts tend to be disregarded, as society continues to view household labor as worthless and non-time consuming. This results in unequal gender relations and a power imbalance between men and women. Men are viewed as prudent, protectors, and decision makers while women are described as emotional, weak, and in need of counsel. This inequitable division of roles persists even when women work outside the home, as they continue to perform domestic labor in addition to their official job. 

 Stereotypical professions and trades

Generally speaking, society continues to believe that women’s primary role is in the home performing unpaid household labor while men engage in productive labor and provide for the family. This unfair division of labor has helped to shape men’s and women’s identity and their personal characteristics in a way that has cemented the privileges and power of men in the home, giving them final decision-making authority. These gender stereotypes extend to the division of productive labor as well. Official statistics show that women are concentrated in caregiving occupations that are similar to their domestic roles. For example, there are 213,088 women members of the Nursing Syndicate and only 30,441 men; similarly, the Social Professions Syndicate has 77,964 women and 50,457 men. By the same token, men are overrepresented in the Scientific Professions Syndicate (82,039 male members compared to 49,174 female members) and in the Engineering Professions Syndicate (496,175 men and 113,818 women) (CAPMAS, 2017a).

 In addition, most of women’s economic activity is concentrated in the informal sector—selling vegetables, making foodstuffs and dairy products, and raising livestock and fowl—which mirrors their household tasks. Indeed, a large segment of women, especially in rural areas, consider these economic activities part and parcel of their domestic caregiving: When asked about productive labor for the market, they say they do not work, seeing these tasks as part of their household responsibilities and roles. Official figures show that 84.2% of women perform unpaid work for the family, compared to 9.9% of men (El Antari & Dessouki, 2016; CAPMAS, 2017b). Moreover, women are often excluded from jobs because employers believe they are unsuited to certain professions or because they wish to evade their obligations under the labor law to provide female workers with maternity and childcare leave, nursing time, and kindergartens. 

Repercussions of the coronavirus crisis

In mid-March, the government instituted several preventive measures to limit the spread of the coronavirus, among them giving exceptional childcare leave to pregnant women and women with children under the age of 12. Some men in workplaces were critical and contemptuous of this measure, demanding that the leave be unpaid, and the usual claims were heard that women are enjoying all their rights and more and that men want to be equal to women. This highlighted a contradiction: Although most men do not assume equal responsibility with women for caregiving in the home, they nevertheless rejected measures that would enable women to perform their caregiving roles. 

 The government also instituted a system of job alternation leave for both men and women. According to a recent poll, 53% of workers said that their workplace had reduced workdays and allowed them to work at home. This included 49% of private-sector workers and 65% of government workers, and 50% of men and 65% of women. Working women with children under the age of 12 were asked if they had been given leave pursuant to the government decree; 42% said yes while 58% replied in the negative. These findings highlight the impact of traditional culture and stereotypes, showing that caregiving is seen as without value, and that women must assume this responsibility alone (Baseera, 2020b).

 Double household duty

The coronavirus pandemic has burdened women with additional household labor, as family members spend more time at home and women assume new tasks related to disinfection, food preparation, and household preventive measures. According to a poll of Egyptian women (Baseera, 2020a),[i] 51% of respondents said that their household responsibilities had increased after the coronavirus, and 61% said they spent more time with their children. 

The poll also found that women of all ages, educational levels, and geographic locations (rural vs. urban) were more vulnerable to domestic violence. Regarding the impact of Covid-19 on women’s exposure to partner violence, 11% of married women said that they had experienced violence from their husband in the week prior to the poll (15.3% were hit, 8.1% kicked, and 83.4% experienced verbal insults). Asking about how the pandemic had affected family, marital, and parent-child relations, the poll found that these sorts of familial disputes had increased 33%. 

 Remote learning

With the institution of a new hybrid education system that alternated online and classroom education, children began to spend more school days at home. Women assumed the burden of making sure their children coped with the new system, which was applied at the end of the school year as exams approached. Exams, too, were conducted in a nonconventional manner involving research and remote testing platforms. Despite the ministry’s efforts to provide the necessary technological infrastructure, poor families faced the particular challenge of internet subscription fees and dealing with electronic platforms. This represented a substantial burden that could impact their children’s ability to continue their education. At the same time, in traditional, conservative areas that see the main role of girls as marriage, these challenges threatened girls’ ability to stay in school. In addition, home schooling meant that girls assumed responsibility for household chores, leading to inequitable educational opportunities for girls and boys. 

 Recommendations

Based on the foregoing, realizing fair relations and an equal division of labor between men and women that ensures the equal enjoyment of all rights requires several measures: 

• The relevant government bodies, civil society organizations, and the private sector should raise awareness of gender issues among women and men. This could be done using unconventional methods in workplaces. The government could also offer childcare leave for both parents. All of this would help to change the culture and enable people to change. 
• The government should enforce Article 53 of the constitution, which criminalizes discrimination and recommends the creation of an anti-discrimination commission. 
• Equal opportunity units within ministries should be empowered to undertake their job of monitoring and receiving complaints of discrimination and violence in the workplace, working to resolve such issues and instituting the necessary policies appropriate for each establishment. 
• Technological infrastructure and internet networks should be improved to ensure universal, high-quality service at a cost allowing everyone equal access to the internet. 
• Academic curricula should be reviewed to remove any stereotypes about the respective roles of men and women. 
• A gender perspective should be mainstreamed in cultural and media institutions and workers at these institutions trained to produce cultural and media content that presents non-traditional role models for both men and women. 

[i] The poll surveyed 1,518 women by telephone from April 4 to 14, 2020.

References

• Baseera (2020a, April). Women and the Covid-19 pandemic [al-Mar’a wa Ja’ihat Kufid-19]. Baseera, National Council for Women, and UNIFEM. [In Arabic]. 
• Baseera (2020b, July). Egyptians’ knowledge of Covid-19 and its impact on their lives and work [Ma‘rifat al-Misriyin bi-Firus Kuruna (Kufid-19) wa Atharuhu ‘ala Hayatihim wa ‘Amalihim]. [In Arabic].
• El Antari, S., and Dessouki, N. (2016). Unpaid labor of women: Working for the family in the informal economy of Egypt [‘Amal al-Nisa’ fi-l-Suq bi-Dun Ajr: al-‘Amal Lada al-Usra fi-l-Iqtisad Ghayr al-Rasmi fi Misr]. New Woman Foundation. [In Arabic].
• Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (2016). Survey on time usage in the Arab Republic of Egypt 2015 (Mash Istikhdam al-Waqt fi Jumhuriya Misr al-‘Arabiya 2015). [In Arabic].
• Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (2017a, November). Annual bulletin of social services statistics 2016 (al-Nashra al-Sanawiya li-Ihsa’at al-Khidmat al-Ijtima‘iya 2016). [In Arabic].
• Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (2017b). Women and men in Egypt 2015 (al-Mar’a wa-l-Rajul fi Misr 2015). CAPMAS and National Council for Women. [In Arabic].