THE EMPTY ROOM

EXPERIMENT

INTRODUCTION

The significance of global sustainable development peremptorily promotes social inclusion, eradicates poverty, promotes equality and diversity, mitigates climate change and fosters current and future socio-economic growth. Sachs et al., (2022) asserted that, low-income countries such as sub-Saharan African nations are experiencing major challenges achieving the 17 sustainable development goals. Sachs and his team further asserted that, the major contributing constrain in achieving sustainable development in developing and low- income nations is poverty. “Poverty means being unable to afford to meet the minimum needs that are deemed reasonable by the standards of the society in question” (Ravallion, 1992). 

In 2021, Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves stated that, globally, women take on three times as much unpaid care work as men, especially women in developing nations such Africa, Asia and South America. Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves further explained that, 1 in 2 women is in paid employment compared with 3 in 4 men on average and if women played an equal role to men in the labour market, $12 trillion could be added to global GDP. In furtherance, according to Ghana Statistical Service, women in Ghana are paid 34.2% less as compared to men in the same job line. This underlines the fact that, women, especially the poorest and most disadvantaged double shoulder unpaid care, domestic work and less pay.

With growing global attention on equality, poverty eradication, end of discrimination and exclusion, reduction in inequalities and vulnerabilities as spelled out by the United Nations Sustainable Development Universal Values “Leave no one behind (LNOB)”, it is therefore imperative to gain insight into the influencers of unpaid care and domestic work and why women in Ghana are paid less than men in the same job lines as a means to inform social policy and gender responsive budgeting that that highlights equality and inclusivity as accelerators to achieve sustainable development goals.

The International Labour Organisation defines unpaid care and domestic work as cleaning, cooking, washing, dressing and caring for children, looking after the sick or disabled family members and collecting fuel or water (Zimmermann 2016).  

According to Singh & Pattanaik (2018), unpaid care and domestic work is being recognised as “women’s work” and it is mostly not characterised as “real work”. Even though unpaid care and domestic work contributes to household well-being and benefits the care receiver, it poses several challenges to equality because women shoulder the burden unfairly and it increases their vulnerability to poverty (Bulog et al., 2022). The World Survey on the Role of Women in Development postulated that “Discriminatory social norms and gender stereotypes position women and girls as the default providers of care, which means that women are less able to acquire access to decent paid work, be financially independent and accumulate savings, assets or retirement income for their later years” (Women U.N. 2019).

It is evident that, unpaid care and domestic work are shared unequally across gender and homes which becomes not only a vicious cycle of time poverty but also translates into decline of mental and physical well-being (Abbot et al., 2017).  

Lightman and Link (2021) argued that, unpaid care and domestic work are major obstacles in achieving sustainable development goals. Using datasets from 25 countries, Lightman and Link established that, unpaid care and domestic work limit the ability of women to participate in various political and socio-economic opportunities which rest as a substantial requirement to live a decent and fulfilling lifestyle. 

On the international level, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) evaluated that, unpaid care and domestic work by countries are valued to be between 10% to 39% of the total Gross Domestic Product.  ILO further asserted that, in some economies, unpaid care and domestic work can contribute more to GDP than transportation (aviation, road, train and others), manufacturing and commerce (Elson 2017).

Sepulveda (2013), found that, across developed and developing nations, there is a pattern of how women have higher proportion of unpaid care and domestic work. Sepulveda agreed with Sachs et al., (2022) that, in low-income economies where access to basic infrastructure and public services is low or non-existent, women shoulder more of unpaid care and domestic work. 

This paper spells out an approach of how video experiment can be used to recognise the influencers of unpaid care and domestic work. The findings shall seek to inform how the influencers can be mitigated in the aspect of redistributing unpaid care and domestic work as a core gender equality that shall be well articulated to inform social, fiscal and economic policies with Ghanaian norms and standards.

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