708 million women unable to join work force due to unpaid care duties —ILO
Recent global statistics from the International Labour Organization (ILO) reveal that an estimated 708 million women worldwide are outside the labour force because of unpaid care responsibilities.
The ILO released the report on Tuesday on the occasion of the International Day of Care and Support.
The new estimates, presented in the ILO Statistical Brief The Impact of Care Responsibilities on Women’s Labour Force Participation, are derived from data from 125 countries.
They indicate that care responsibilities present the main barrier to women entering and staying in the labour force, while men are more likely to cite other personal reasons for being outside the labour force, such as education and health issues.
The Director of the Conditions of Work and Equality Department at the ILO, Sukti Dasgupta, said, “Women shoulder a disproportionate share of care responsibilities, preventing their participation in the labour force due to factors such as low education levels, limited job opportunities, poor infrastructure, rural residence, and inadequate care and support systems. Additionally, societal expectations and norms around caregiving further restrict women’s labour market inclusion, and deepen gender inequalities”.
Speaking further, the Chief Statistician and Director of the Department of Statistics, Rafael Diez de Medina, said, “These new ILO data expose important inequalities in the world of work due to unequal care responsibilities and highlight the power of data to improve our understanding of the care economy. The ILO has made decent work in the care economy a top priority and is working towards new statistical standards to improve care work data”.
The report further shows that, globally, around 1.6 billion women and 800 million men are outside the labour force, with 45% of these women and 5% of these men citing care responsibilities as the reason for their non-participation.
Among women aged 25 to 54, the proportion citing care as the reason for being outside the workforce rises to two-thirds (379 million women).
Women with lower education and those in rural areas also face higher barriers to workforce participation due to care responsibilities.
