Unpaid care work and Covid19 - TAKE THE SURVEY
The front door is an important border in the gendered economy. A “traditional” division of labor since industrialization is men working outside the home at market work and women inside the home doing unpaid care and housework. In reality, men and women do both types of work, but in every country for which Counting Women’s Work has estimates, on average men do more market work than women and women do more unpaid care work than men. Will this persist in the face of massive dislocations caused by the coronavirus pandemic? We do not know.
Shelter in place, social distancing, lockdown. Whatever it is called in your area, government orders to slow the spread of the coronavirus have upended daily life for billions. Most of us are being asked to retreat to our households. Will we see the gendered economy differently when it no longer hides behind a door?
Counting Women’s Work has developed a survey to study how paid and unpaid work has changed in this new era. We invite you to take the survey, then share it with family, friends, and colleagues. It gives respondents the chance to be heard about how their household is coping with all kinds of work changes:
Have you or your spouse or partner lost paid employment? Or is your work considered “essential” and you are working longer hours than ever? Would you rather stay home but cannot afford to go without a paycheck?
Are you spending more hours on childcare in the face of school and childcare closures?
Are you doing tasks that you used to purchase from restaurants, housecleaners, or other service providers?
Is the work in your household being shared more evenly or less?
What do YOU want to say about work in and out of the household in this new, uncertain time?
The survey is anonymous and participation voluntary. We will publish preliminary results here once 500 responses have been gathered and will continue to update results as the sample size grows. The survey is in English, but CWW would be happy to have collaborators translate the survey instrument and use it in other countries. Feel free to leave comments or questions below, or contact Gretchen Donehower, the Principal Investigator of Counting Women’s Work.