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What if we were paid for all the unpaid work we did at home? This includes nursing, cleaning, babysitting, cooking, etc.
While some might argue that this is an important part of our daily lives, the problem arises when the vast majority of unpaid work ends up being done by one gender.
The problem is especially acute when unpaid work is the reason women (who do most of the work) are unable to participate in the workforce or paid labor.
According to the Malaysian Department of Statistics, women make up only 38.8% of the workforce; men make up 61.2%.
This does not correspond to nearly equal enrolment rates of boys and girls in higher education institutions.
According to World Bank data in 2018, 60% of Malaysian women leaving the workforce cited childcare and domestic work as the main reasons.
The Malaysian Employers Federation’s 2019 Lost Hours and Absenteeism Survey showed that of the 140 companies surveyed, only 4% provided or set up childcare centres in the workplace, and only 1% offered childcare subsidies or allowances.
“Family responsibility” was the most common reason for employee absenteeism, accounting for 94.2%.
The truth is that while we don’t pay mothers or fathers to take care of our children or clean the house or care for the elderly, these jobs have a huge impact on our economy and society. This is an open question that requires attention.
In our poll ‘The Value of Unpaid Work’, we asked Star readers what they thought of the value of doing unpaid work from home, and the majority of the 648 respondents – especially women – believes that these jobs should be valued financially.
In fact, 82% of female respondents believe they should be paid for work done at home, while 18% disagree. 57% of male respondents agreed that they should be paid for work done from home, while almost half (43%) disagreed.
How much time do we spend on these tasks each day? The largest percentage of female respondents (37.5%) said they spend two to five hours a day doing unpaid work.
Among male respondents, 35.2% said they spend one to two hours a day on these tasks.
This division of household chores is in line with global findings: The International Labour Organization reports that women do four times as much unpaid work as men.
The poll respondents varied and included full-time workers, part-time or freelancers, retirees or the unemployed, students and the self-employed.
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