Equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men including care-giving in the context of HIV/AIDS

1. Equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men including care-giving in the context of HIV/AIDS

2. “What’s for dinner?” UN responded to the age-old tale UN has long recognized the unequal sharing of responsibilities as a women’s issue: 1994 – ICPD – full participation and partnership of women and men in productive and reproductive life, including shared responsibilities for the care and nurturing of children and maintenance of the household 1995- FWCW – girls and young women expected to manage education and domestic duties; under-value of women’s unpaid work 1995 – Social Summit – shared responsibility for older family members and men’s responsibility in responsible parenthood and sexual and reproductive behaviour 2007 – CSW – discrimination and violence against girls in HIV/AIDS epidemic, girls heading households and caring for orphans

3. “Your turn to feed the baby tonight” So what’s new? • Recent developments: • Urgency of the HIV/AIDS epidemic-Home Based Care (HBC) • in HIV/AIDS care-giving as major policy • 2. Persistance of unequal distribution of responsibilities although • economic development may improve • 3. Low fertility rates - women want fewer or no • children – e.g. Japan, Korea, Iceland • 4. Search for best practices especially related to role of men • 5. Advances in research and policy evaluation of care regime • and Time Use studies

4. What is the scope of the problem? From Nancy, Folbre “What is She Worth? How to Value (or Not to Value) a Woman’s Life”

5. If a man shares a small umbrella with his wife in a bad storm, they both still get wet – poverty matters ● Not just about getting men to share space—focus on relationship between micro and macro-economic and social policies to reduce poverty, improve infrastructure and social services ● Not enough to change policies in social sector - the care economy such as paternal leave or flexible hours; must involve changes in values and cultural norms about “women’s work.” ● Not just more economic growth – the goal should not be to free women for the labor market. Rather policies must contribute to their freedoms and human rights and support equal citizenship

6. MICRO-level and household Power relations – Who decides? -Equal responsibility and sharing of decision-making, flexibility in role sharing -Separate but “equal”-Women control the purse strings and men bring home the bacon -Unequal power relations – women’s roles defined by male dominance norms and male privilege in the household Violence and insecurity– threat or actual, physical or mental, economic or social insecurity punishes girls and women who rebel

7. Macro-level and globalization Gendered division of labor based on stereotypes – e.g. rural women’s work (fuel, water, transplanting, weeding, care for children and animals) vs. men’s (plowing with animals, marketing) Economic stress and instability leads to cuts in social services – burden falls on household to provide unpaid services – e.g. HBC. Poor countries cannot invest in labor-saving technologies, infrastructure improvements like water and roads, cheap clean fuel Globalization of care economy – ethnic and migrant women, including girls support care “deficit”; vulnerable to sexual exploitation, low wages and few social securities

8. Why is it important? From Nancy, Folbre “What is She Worth? How to Value (or Not to Value) a Woman’s Life”

9. Impact on women and girls’ personal and public life Girls’ pulled out of school to care for HIV/AIDS patients Women’s labor force participation compromised because of incompatibility between family and work -informal sector work -home-based and part-time work -little protection from labor laws -lowered social security or health insurance

10. The time burden • In Japan, only 7.6% couples reported sharing responsibilities feeding children versus 19.6 % in Thailand and 29.6% in Sweden

11. Economic and social costs Invisibility - Women’s low paid or unpaid work is unaccounted for in National statistics – therefore value is not returned Life-cycle vulnerability – insecurity for girls withdrawn from school; women in old age with no pension Psychological and physical stresses on family – HIV/AIDS; poverty with loss of women’s wages, debt,

12. Resources “The NGO CSW/NY guide to what women want” NY Times best seller in 2010

13. UN/DAW Expert Group Meeting final report and all papers available at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/equalsharing/egm_equalsharing.htm Nancy Folbre’s caretalk blog http://blogs.umass.edu/folbre