ILO-Magdalene social experiment: Women spend 100 hours of unpaid care work a week

JAKARTA, Indonesia (ILO News) - To demonstrate the double burden shouldered by women and the amount of time they spend to do care work, the ILO in collaboration with Magdalene, a leading online female media, conducted a social experiment. Five women were selected to record their domestic and caregiving tasks for seven days, then noted the time spent on each.

“The experiment attempted to understand how many hours women spent on caregiving work, unpaid job deeply associated with women, and its value if it were paid,” said Early Dewi Nuriana, ILO’s Programme Coordinator for Care Work.

The social experiment revealed that four out five participants recorded caregiving hours exceeding 40 hours per week, beyond the standardized total working hours of a full-time worker as stipulated under the Job Creation Law No. 11/2020.

Natalia Kusumaningrum, 43 years old, a food delivery worker, for example, contributed 103.58 hours per week or 414.33 hours per month as a caregiver. Since hiring a babysitter or asking help from family members is not an option, Natalia as a mother of three had to bring her two-year-old child with her as she made her deliveries; while at the same time, she has to prepare meals for her family, clean the house, do laundry, take care of her children and more.

Meanwhile Riris Suryowati, 53 years old, a retiree who takes care of her bed-bound father for 24/7, worked 103.50 hours per week or 414 hours per month. She receives no assistance in doing this work and her workload equated to 258.75 percent of her last salary.

Emmy, 39 years old, a single mother who works a researcher while raising a child and caring for aging father. She spends 99 hours per week or the equivalent of 396 hours per month as caregiver. Even though she delegates 63.42 hours of caregiving work to a domestic assistant, she still spends 35.58 hours per week, which would give her twice her salary as a social researcher.

Working mother of two Arniati Purnami, 35 years old, recorded her caregiving work hours at 59,92 hours per week or the equivalent of 203.67 hours per month. If she received a salary for the unpaid caregiving work, her salary would reach almost Rp 11 million per month, more than her current pay.

Ernawati’s situation is slightly better than the four participants. The 49-year-old travel agent, who has been working from home to care for her ailing father, spends 25.98 hours per week on caregiving work, including taking care of her father for a month. She would have earned 64.69 percent more than her current salary as a caregiver.

All the five participants agree that caregiving work is important. However, they also believed that caregiving work was women’s work, not men’s. Women do a better job at nursing others and women are naturally suited to caregiving and care works.

There is an urgent need to recognize unpaid care work as valuable and productive work through the social protection scheme, such as paid leave for workers with family responsibilities to provide family care, so that women can continue to work and earn an income.

Early Dewi Nuriana, ILO’s Programme Coordinator for Care Work

Early also stated that the results of the social experiment further confirmed the findings of the ILO survey on public perceptions of care work. In the 2023 survey, the survey finds that the majority of female respondents (67.3 percent) said they do not feel they have to work longer hours doing care work than men.

Even though the survey also shows that 61.6 percent of male respondents have a wife or sister who have to bear the double burden, 65.6 percent are not willing to pay someone else to help with care work. Meanwhile, female respondents who have a double burden reach 79.3 percent. However, ironically, 78.3 percent refuse to pay someone else to help with care work.

"Thus, by converting the hours of care work carried out per day, per week to per month in the form of income, it will bring awareness to how much this care work has economic value, which up to now has been considered unproductive work and does not need to be paid," she added.

One of the participants, Emmy believes that the recognition of care work is important. “As a researcher, I am often exposed to campaigns about gender equality and care work. At the end of the day, this work still cannot be ignored. The message is clear—This is not only the responsibility of women.”

The first step to addressing gender bias, according to Early, was by acknowledging that caregiving work was productive work. She also emphasized the need for actions from various parties to not only change people’s mindsets, but also provide favourable policies and infrastructure supports.

“There is an urgent need to recognize unpaid care work as valuable and productive work through the social protection scheme, such as paid leave for workers with family responsibilities to provide family care, so that women can continue to work and earn an income. Infrastructure support such as senior-friendly homes and affordable childcare services can alleviate burden carried by caregivers," she concluded.

The social experiment was conducted as part of the ILO campaign on care economy aimed to promote a greater investment in care economy for building a better and more gender equal world of work in Indonesia. The social media campaign on this social experiment has reached 211,113 views through Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Youtube and has generated massive media publicity.