It is necessary to value and redistribute care work to move towards a style of development that puts the sustainability of life at the center, says ECLAC

There is a continuum between the right to health and the right to care, and the COVID-19 pandemic exposed not only that link, but also how most of the care and health care work falls on women. Faced with this panorama, it is necessary to articulate two axes: the principle of equality with a horizon of sustainability.

The link between the care society and the right to health was the theme of the presentation that Ana Güezmes, Director of ECLAC’s Gender Affairs Division, gave during the webinar “Human Rights: Challenges to make the right to health a reality”. health and the right to care”, organized by the Andean Health Agency-Hipólito Unanue Agreement (ORAS-CONHU). Armando De Negri, International Specialist Advisor on Health Systems and Services of PAHO/WHO Mexico, also joined the panel.

Within this framework, Güezmes referred to the regional and global context, characterized by cascading crises that exacerbate historical gaps. “The region faces multiple cascading crises that affect the lives of millions of people in the region: economic and social crisis, climate and health crisis, food security crisis and care crisis. Faced with this panorama, we have an obligation to find bold and innovative solutions that contribute to closing the inequality and gender gaps that affect the autonomy and exercise of women’s rights. It is that women are sustaining the crisis, she added, and the care crisis has deepened. The monetary valuation of unpaid work in the region shows that it plays a fundamental role in the functioning of economies. Three quarters of the contribution of this work to GDP is made by women.

“As we have highlighted on different occasions, the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had a strong impact on the deepening of the structural knots of gender inequalities in the region and from ECLAC we have shown the overrepresentation of women in unemployment. , informality, poverty, domestic and care work. We have also highlighted how women have been, paradoxically, in the front line of response from the health sector”, said Ana Güezmes.

In addition to these obstacles, he added, the increase in employment in emerging sectors linked to digitization presents challenges and opportunities given the increase in the demand for care and the persistent digital gender gap: 4 out of 10 women in the region are not connected or cannot afford connectivity. “The structural knots of gender inequality are reflected in the composition of work in sectors linked to care. That is why we insist on caring for those who care. Women are 72.6% of the people employed in the health sector, 69.6% of the people employed in the education sector and 90.7% of the people employed in paid domestic work. Despite this, they are underrepresented in managerial positions and in decision-making,” the Director of the Gender Affairs Division stated.

Added to this unequal distribution, in the three sectors there is a wide wage gap that worsens from an intersectional perspective: “It seems very important to us to highlight this approach: Afro-descendant and indigenous women are the ones with the lowest salaries in the four sectors studied. In the case of health, for example, the average salary of non-indigenous or Afro-descendant men is 3 times the average salary of indigenous or Afro-descendant women”.

In this sense, explained Ana Güezmes, “we are at a turning point as countries and as a region and we need to act with a sense of urgency, raise the level of ambition and scale in policy efforts. This is not a time for gradual and timid changes, but for bold and transformative policies that really move the needles of development”. The care society, she said, is a transformative change and propositional notion. No government is going to achieve it alone, which is why a multi-scale and multilateral pact is required to reorganize the care system on the basis of eco-dependence with the planet, interdependence between people and gender and social co-responsibility (between the State, market, household and community).

Ana Güezmes expressed that in order to advance towards a style of development with gender equality, which puts the sustainability of life at the center, it is necessary to revalue care work, both in the household sphere and when it is provided by the State or the market. She added that designing and implementing care policies requires affirmative actions in the field of taxation, employment, productive, economic and social policies in the short, medium and long term. “We have to put how to boost investment at the center of the debate. From ECLAC we have conceptualized care more than as an expense, as a key investment for a recovery with equality”.

On the other hand, in order to face the increase in demand for specialized care (current and future), it is necessary to rethink the health sector from a gender perspective. It is necessary to work on efficient health systems that can adequately respond to the challenges of the demographic and epidemiological transition, pandemics, and humanitarian crises resulting from disasters and climate emergencies, among other factors with significant effects on health care. There is a need to further adopt the primary health care approach and community-based health promotion, bearing in mind that available medical services and investments in public health infrastructure have a direct impact on the time that households dedicated to care.

In this approach, investing in the care infrastructure has multiplier effects in the generation of employment, in the labor participation of women, in the redistribution of time and income, and in tax collection. “There is a virtuous circle between investment in care infrastructure and economic recovery. On the one hand, investment boosts domestic consumer demand and, with it, the level of activity. On the other hand, the possibilities of growth and development are expanded in the medium term to the extent that women’s time is freed up and the quality of care is professionalized and regulated. Therefore, investment in care as a key sector for the sustainability of life is essential to articulate the emergency with recovery and move towards a care society: for the care of the planet, people and self-care”, concluded Ana Guezmes.

The webinar can be viewed here.