To address the gender gaps that impact women’s lives in Latin America, it is critical to address the unequal division of care work that disproportionately affects women and prevents them from participating more equally in the economy. During the GLI Forum LatAm 2023, we brought together leading experts to share concrete proposals and solutions focused on redistributing care work.
“Domestic and care work is the invisible [economic] engine that we take as a given,” noted Carolina Robino, Senior Program Specialist at IDRC, who moderated the Gender Revolution in the Care Economy session. “These activities still go unrecognized and are inequitably distributed, given that 90% of domestic and care workers are women.”
Women dedicate, on average, 3.2 times more time than men to unpaid care work (ILO). As a result, women are constantly time-poor, which constrains their participation in the labor market and exacerbates existing inequalities.
When discussing paid domestic work, it is essential to acknowledge that this sector has one of the highest rates of informality and wage precariousness. Many domestic workers are immigrants, Indigenous women, or women who have left their rural communities in search of work, placing them at higher risk of exploitation and violence.
Alexandra Garzón, People and Culture Manager at Symplifica, emphasized this reality and shared that the idea for Symplifica was born to serve the thousands of women working as informal domestic workers. Symplifica offers a simple and easy way for domestic workers to formalize their employment and access the relevant professional benefits.
“We’ve been doing this for seven years now,” said Alexandra. “To date, 33,000 domestic workers are now formally employed in Colombia and 1,000 in Mexico, where we launched operations in 2022. 65% of women enrolled with Symplifica report that their quality of life has improved.”
Although progress has been made in recent years, there is still a long way to go in evenly distributing childcare tasks and responsibilities. It is fundamentally important to push for a profound cultural change to address the prevailing social norm that women are responsible for caring for children. Creating childcare infrastructure and programs is essential and highly cost-effective, considering that these services could generate almost 300 million jobs by 2035 (ILO).
“Children need to receive an early education,” added Juan Camilo Potes, Sales Director at Aeiotu, a Colombian social enterprise committed to transforming communities by supporting children’s development. “These are the most important 1,500 days of a human being’s life.”
Aeiotu manages kindergartens and educational consulting centers and provides advocacy and lobbying support. The organization works with a network of caregivers to professionalize informal care work, generate employment, and offer financial opportunities to people employed in the informal sector.
Aeiotu also focuses on high-impact projects that target immigrant and rural populations, an area where Tierra Grata has been focusing since 2016. The organization provides rural communities in Colombia with access to essential services.
“A total of 4% [of rural communities] do not have access to electricity, 14% do not have access to clean drinking water, and 30% do not have access to safe and dignified toilets,” noted Bene Asprilla Mosquera, Social Management Coordinator at Tierra Grata. Tierra Grata plays a critical role in alleviating the burden of unpaid work, improving women’s quality of life, and empowering them to devote more time and resources to other activities.
Ángela Mercedes Bailon shared the story of Asociación Unidas Para Vivir Mejor (Upavim), which has been working for more than 30 years to support women in Guatemala. Today, Upavim has a childcare center, primary and pre-k school, and a handicrafts program that funds the school’s maintenance and upkeep.
“Impact investing must address systemic barriers like the ones we’re discussing here,” said Carolina Robino. To direct investment towards companies that offer innovative, market-based solutions to recognize, reward, reduce, and redistribute care activities, IDRC launched the Transforming the Care Economy through Impact Investing initiative to generate knowledge and evidence regarding these social and for-profit enterprises.
As part of the project, the Core Women team coordinated research throughout Latin America, highlighting 180 organizations working to solve these challenges.
“We identified incredible companies, some that already received investment and others that are ready to take that next step. Many [of these companies] are here today,” commented Susana Martinez, Co-Founder and CEO of Core Women. She also highlighted solutions and care policies that companies are implementing in their value chains and communities, as well as ways that companies are addressing cultural patterns through their marketing and communication strategies. The private sector has a vital role to play in complementing public sector initiatives, a necessary collaboration in the face of a pressing situation: “In 2050, there will be more than 191 million people over the age of 60 in the region. We are going to need more and more care services.”
Pro Mujer and Alterna also play key strategic roles in the IDRC initiative. In partnership with key institutions from the local ecosystem, the two organizations built their own tools to better understand the sector’s challenges and offer relevant solutions. María Liliana Mor, Director of Partnerships and Development at Pro Mujer, and Julia Daley, Director of Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning for Impact at Alterna, shared the stage to share their experience in Central America.
As part of the initiative, the two organizations conducted 70 interviews with key actors and collected information to identify and outline the care ecosystem in each participating country, mapping out companies and cooperatives, stakeholders, and local leaders and governments. The project also included training sessions, discussion roundtables, and practical workshops.
In Bolivia, where we first launched operations more than 33 years ago, Pro Mujer is getting ready to launch a new project that seeks to recognize and promote business practices that support care and encourage their implementation in companies in Cochabamba, El Alto, La Paz, and Santa Cruz.
Care work is fundamental for human and economic development. Investing 2% of GDP in the public care sector can create millions of jobs, reduce the wage gap, promote equality, and contribute to inclusive economic growth (ITUC). Through strategic cooperation, it is possible to address the profound inequality that currently marks the care economy.
