Who Will Pay Women for the Work That Sustains the World?
By Isaac Eranga
Every single day, long before the sun rises and well after it sets, an invisible engine keeps the world turning.
In millions of households across the globe, a woman is waking up to fetch water, lighting a stove to prepare a family meal, washing clothes by hand, sweeping floors, and organizing the chaos of a household. She is nurturing children, caring for the sick, and managing a complex emotional and logistical ecosystem.
This is the reality of Unpaid Care and Domestic Work (UCDW). Yet, despite being the bedrock of society and the global economy, this labor remains largely unmeasured, undervalued, and completely unpaid.
It raises a profound, uncomfortable question: If we were to actually quantify and cost this work, who would pay the women?
The uncomfortable truth is that the traditional patriarchal structures and current economic models simply cannot afford them.
The Economic Paradox: Beyond White-Collar Salaries
If you look at the sheer scope of domestic labor, the numbers are staggering. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), women perform 76.2% of all hours of unpaid care work globally—more than three times as much as men. In many developing regions, this disparity is even wider, compounded by a lack of infrastructure like piped water or modern cooking energy.
Let’s look at the mathematics of a standard household. If you were to unbundle the role of a homemaker and price each service at market rates, the checklist would look like this:
- Chef & Nutritionist (Meal preparation)
- Nanny & Early Childhood Educator (Childcare and homework guidance)
- Housekeeper & Janitor (Cleaning, laundry, and sanitation)
- Logistics Manager & Water Carrier (Fetching water and sourcing provisions)
- Nurse/Caregiver (Managing family health and elderly care)
If a husband or partner were to pay market-rate salaries for every single one of these roles, cumulative wages would vastly outstrip the earnings of average white-collar professions. A corporate executive, a banker, or a civil servant would quickly find that their entire monthly salary could not cover the specialized, 24/7 labor being provided for free under their own roof.
The corporate world operates on a strict eight-hour structure. Domestic care has no closing time, no weekends, no sick leave, and no pension. To put it bluntly: the modern family structure is subsidized by the free labor of women.
The Cost to Women: The Gender “Care Penalty”
Because this work is unquantified, society treats it as a natural duty rather than actual labor. This creates a severe economic disadvantage for women, often referred to as the “care penalty.”
When women are tied to the immediate, demanding survival needs of the home—such as spending hours daily just to fetch clean water or firewood—they are systematically excluded from formal employment, political participation, and personal advancement. They are working around the clock, yet they are excluded from national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculations.
Recognition on the Global Stage: The Power of UN Advocacy
For decades, this silent crisis went unaddressed, but the tides are slowly shifting. Thanks to relentless global advocacy, the international community has begun to pull back the curtain on this invisible economy.
A monumental milestone in this fight is the United Nations’ establishment of the International Day of Care and Support (observed annually on October 29). This day stands as a vital global recognition of the structural importance of care work, framing it not as a private domestic chore, but as a fundamental human right and economic pillar. Furthermore, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) explicitly targets the recognition and valuation of unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure, and social protection policies.
These international frameworks are crucial. They validate what millions of women have known for generations: their time has immense value.
If Men Can’t Pay, What is the Solution?
Recognizing the problem is only the first step. If individual household incomes cannot support the true market value of domestic work, how do we fix a broken system? The solution lies in shifting the burden from individual men to systemic structural reforms, often captured by the “4Rs” framework:
- Recognize: Nations must begin measuring unpaid care work in national statistics and time-use surveys to see how much it truly contributes to the economy.
- Reduce: Governments must invest in basic infrastructure. Piped water, rural electrification, and accessible primary healthcare centers radically reduce the hours women spend on survival chores.
- Redistribute: A cultural shift is required within the home. Care work must be shared more equitably between men and women, breaking the stereotype that domestic chores are inherently “women’s work.”
- Represent: Women, particularly grassroots and community leaders, must have a seat at the decision-making tables where economic and social policies are formulated.
A Legacy of Dignity
The question of who will pay women for housework reveals a deep structural flaw in how humanity calculates worth. The home is not just a private space; it is the incubator of the workforce, the sanctuary of the sick, and the foundation of society.
While individual wages may never fully capture or compensate for the profound depth of a mother’s or wife’s labor, global recognition is a vital step toward equity. It is time to stop viewing domestic work as an invisible, expected duty, and start treating it for what it truly is: the core labor that holds our world together.
