Women work unpaid five hours more than men

Although men and women get the same amount of time for rest and sleep, women have to spend six hours for unpaid care work for their families while men do them for an hour only, found a research conducted in North Bengal.

Compared to men, women face more difficulties with allocating their time for unpaid care work and income-generating work, the findings added.

ActionAid Bangladesh and the Centre for Gender and Social Transformation (CGST) of BRAC Institute of Governance and Development conducted the study in 2013-2014 on pattern of time use of women and men.

Cooking, cleaning, washing, and taking care of the family were regarded as unpaid care work in the study that included 224 women and 121 men in Lalmonirhat and Gaibandha.

The unpaid works should be recognised and equally distributed among males and females, it observed.

At an event organised by ActionAid Bangladesh and CGST at the senate bhaban of Dhaka University yesterday, Simeen Mahmud, CGST coordinator and the lead researcher, said if women could reduce the load of unpaid works, they would get the opportunity to increase their income.

UN Women Country Representative Christine Hunter mentioned that Bangladesh's labour law does not even recognise domestic helps as workers and people take advantage of that. The domestic works should be included in the GDP, she added.

Moderated by ActionAid Country Director Farah Kabir, the event was also attended by former senior research fellow of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies Pratima Paul Majumder, and Director General of the Department of Women Affairs Shahin Ahmed Chowdhury.