Public interest in CWW Costa Rica research

The University of Costa Rica TV Program "Espectro" interviewed CWW Costa Rica team leader Pamela Jiménez Fontana about unpaid work in Costa Rica and other topics covered by National Transfer Accounts and National Time Transfer Accounts. The video also includes a discussion with the Minister of Women's Affairs.

CWW/NTA Research Wins Conference Poster Award at IUSSP 2017

Tanja Istenic of the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics, and Gretchen Donehower of UC Berkeley Department of Demography with the winning poster of Day 4.

"Is it men or women who pay for the kids? The gendered division in the contributions to childbearing and implications for fertility" was a poster that showcased CWW research methods and their ability to bring new insights by combining the economies of the market and the household. The poster was authored by Lili Vargha of the Hungarian Demographic Research Institute, Gretchen Donehower of UC Berkeley and Tanja Istenic of the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics. It was presented at the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population’s (IUSSP) 28th international conference, held in Cape Town, South Africa, on October 29 to November 4, 2017.

It was awarded the Best Poster Prize for Day 4.

Policy Forum on Counting Women's Work in Vietnam

Unpaid care and domestic work are vital for people’s well-being and the functioning of the market economy. Globally, the burden of combining productive and reproductive work has negative consequences on women’s lives, including limiting economic opportunities and power within households. Since these activities are ignored in the System of National Accounts and measures of total production such as GDP, no economic value is attached to unpaid household services despite their tremendous contribution to the economy and society.

One of the key targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 5 is to “recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibilities within the household and the family as nationally appropriate”. Vietnam’s National Strategy for Gender Equality 2011-2020 includes a target to reduce women’s time involvement in household duties under its objective to ensure gender equality in family life.

As part of the Counting Women’s Work (CWW) research, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Vietnam’s research team is engaging with this issue. The CWW research in Vietnam has been carried out by the the Institute of Labour Science and Social Affairs. The findings and policy recommendations emanating from this research were discussed with a variety of stakeholders at a workshop held in Hanoi, Vietnam, on 23 May 2017.

IDRC report on forum IDRC report on forum

PI Donehower’s presentation slides

Colombia CWW Results in "The Economics of Caring and Public Policy"

Piedad Urdinola discussed results from the Colombia CWW research at a seminar entitled "The economics of caring and public policy" in Bogotá on 16 November 2016. In support of many of the ideas discussed in the seminar, Piedad provided evidence of the large part that caring plays in the lives of ordinary people and how, in the Colombian context, it is linked with gender differences in the educational system and labour market segregation.

The main goal of the seminar was to gather information from experts, policy makers and academics to develop a plan for a national policy on caring.

The programme for the event can be downloaded here.

Counting Women's Work at 38th International Association for Time Use Research Conference

The Counting Women's Work project presented a special session at the 38th International Association of Time Use Research (IATUR) Conference, hosted in Seoul, South Korea, from 19 to 22 July 2016. The session was well received and provided a useful opportunity to engage more closely with the time-use research community.

The following presentations were made:

• Gretchen Donehower: Age and Gender in Time Use-Based Estimates of the Care Economy and Household Production

• Morne Oosthuizen: Counting Women's Work in South Africa

• Eugenia Amporfu: Measuring the Distribution of Housework among Men and Women in Ghana

• Lili Vargha: Household production and consumption over the lifecycle in Europe

• Estela Rivero: Intergenerational time transfers and time use in Mexico. A 2002-2014 comparison

NTA XI Conference

A number of country teams presented the research they have been conducting as part of the Counting Women's Work project at the 11th Global Meeting of the NTA Network in Dakar and Saly, Senegal, from 20 to 24 June 2016. Presentations included:

• Eugenia Amporfu, D.Sakyi, P.B. Frimpong, E.Arthur, J.Novignon, Measuring the Distribution of Housework among Men and Women in Ghana: The National Time Transfer Accounts Approach

• Nguyen Thi Lan Huong, Pham Ngoc Toan, and Pham Minh Thu, Using National Time Transfer Accounts Approach to Analyse Labor Income Gap by Gender in Vietnam

• Pamela Jiménez Fontana, Gender inequality on the intergenerational flows in Costa Rica

• Laishram Ladusingh, Wake Up India, Count Women's Work

• Oumy Laye and Latif Dramani, Trade off Between Labor Market and Domestic Market in Senegal

• Moses Muriithi, Reuben Mutegi, Germano Mwabu, The Incomes and Labor Supplies of Unpaid Family Workers in Kenya

• Morné Oosthuizen, Counting Women's Work in South Africa

• Estela Rivero, Changes in intrahousehold time transfers in Mexico between 2002 and 2014: What accounts for what?

Other presentations related to Counting Women's Work can be found here. One exciting development of the conference was that the group of West African countries involved in creating demographic dividend observatories would incorporate a gender perspective and time use analyses into those plans.

For more information about the NTA XI conference, please visit the conference site.