International Day of Domestic Employment: recognizing the invisible and essential work

We come to our house and everything is put forwardNo one has been shopping or brooming, there is a pile of clothes to wash and there is no more crockery to use. This is probably a problem that we will need a few hours to solve, but what's the problem? There is no doubt that we must do it, no muscular man has freed us from the task and, in any case, the woman of the house will be invoked.

It is also true that these extremes are usually not achieved (in The Simpsons only when Marge is hospitalized). There are daily routines that primarily generate women to keep each home functioning and what is sought after Every July 22 is recognition of those tasks that are needed, no more and no less, so that household members can perform their tasks outside the home.

"She does not work, she's a housewife"

"It was possible to retire women who drink tea in the afternoons but who have retired with the housewife system" Pichetto said last November, during the discussion on the 2019 budget. Another expression of the same lack of recognition of the tasks needed to support a home and reproduce the idea of ​​women lying on the couch reading magazines. . Nothing is further from the reality of our country.

Let's move on to the data and speak correctly, according to the 2013 Indec Time Use Survey (the last conducted), 9 out of 10 women participate in housework while 6 out of 10 men do the same. I notice that 4 out of 10 men do not wash a plate directly.

Of the people involved in these tasks, women spend more than 6 hours a day washing, shopping, caring for infants and seniors, and many other activities that will know who does these tasks. Men on their side spend half the time, the famous and super recognized "help you at home". In all, women do 75% of the work at home.

These hours to keep the house in order give women less time to devote to the paid labor market, because there is something of equality between people, it is in the duration of the day. Although the mbadive integration of women into labor markets dates back to the last century, it did not free them from domestic chores and therefore concluded in a double working day.

There is one example generally used in the national accounts study, which shows the injustice of not recognizing this work: If Juan has a housekeeper and wife, then a job in the economy is lost. Because? Because before, I was paying him a salary for this job and now he is not doing it. It seems that now this is part of the work of the wife.

It does not help you at home

The situation is not the same for all women because those who can afford it subcontract the work to another woman, the domestic worker, and I say woman because the sector is 98% female. At this point, the work is paid for at home but it is done in worse conditions than the rest of the work. It is that When you recognize this work, when you set it, you get one of the lowest average wages in the economy.

Only one in four domestic workers is registered, but casualization goes beyond their social security status. They earn a little over $ 100 at the hour and this value is only perceived by the small group of regularized employees, while the wage decreases sharply on the informal market (without contributions or social work).

Although the special employment contract scheme for private house staff was enacted in 2013, it replaces a 1956 decree establishing minimum rights for these workers, they continue to stay out of the law on employment contracts as if their job did not have the same status as the rest of the workforce. This sector absorbs nearly 1 in 5 workers in our country.

This is not love

To eat, you must make the previous purchases, you must cook, you must clean, set the table, serve and when you have finished washing again. All this is repeated in a daily dance that includes caring for babies, washing clothes and the infinite, etc. What we are looking for every July 22 since 1983 is the recognition of these tasks to evenly distribute them among the family members, denaturing them as "women".

In the same way, Public policies, in a world where reproduction tasks are systematically the responsibility of women, are a necessary condition for the search for an egalitarian society. That is why access to quality public nurseries is needed and at the workplace, for both mothers and fathers, the extension of maternal and paternal leave and increased care coverage for the elderly and disabled.

In our country, where the state does not meet these needs, The role of domestic workers becomes essential for a large number of households. However, this work is mainly in precarious conditions and with low pay, which shows the low social value given to procreation work.