(qCOSTARICA) – The National Institute for Women (Instituto Nacional de la Mujer – INAMU) welcomed the adoption of the initiative which recognizes the unpaid work of women.
On Wednesday, the a legislative commission approved on second reading the draft bill, “Ley Contabilización del aporte del trabajo doméstico no remunerado en el Sistema de Cuentas Nacionales” (Law accounting the contribution of unpaid housework in the System of National Accounts).
This law allows recording of the amount of contribution made by women doing housework and family care to the Gross Domestic Product (Producto Interno Bruto – PIB).
According to the Time Use Survey 2011 (Encuesta de Uso del Tiempo del 2011), women spend about 37 hours a week on housework, while men spend only 15 hours.
For the Minister for the Status of Women (Condición de la Mujer), Alejandra Mora, women face double and triple working hours without any acknowledgment of payment.
The chief of the INAMU said that this kind of recognition will allowed women to rise from discrimination and invalidation.
The legislation provides for periodic surveys on use of time and the estimation of a satellite account of unpaid housework and its inclusion in the System of National Accounts.
The INAMU says the information obtained from the surveys would create policies to better understand the movement or mobility of persons; expand and diversify or strengthen alternative care programs as the National Care Network; paternity leave and pay for social protection systems, among other measures.
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In principle, this isn’t a bad thing. Unpaid domestic work is generally ignored, and recognizing its contrbution is important.
Yet, you do have to scratch your head and wonder if this is really the kind of thing a cash-strapped county needs to be doing now. It’s not free to undertake these calculations, as neither is the National Institute of Women without cost, and it’s not as if anyone is going to use these inflated GDP numbers. Also, for God’s sakes, how really can any of this be calculated? Just because a housewife claims she spends 37 hours a week doing this or that, doesn’t mean that we should believe her. I mean, we might ask if the TV is on at the same time and she’s paying more attention to the soap operas.
This is a good thing for Sweden to do. I’m not sure that Costa Rica can afford it.