Counting and valuing women’s unpaid work in South Africa
Date
2022
Authors
Sebola, Koketso
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Abstract
Counting and valuing unpaid work provides a broader context to the inequality, poverty and gender discrimination in an economy and within households. Women all over the world spend a greater amount of time on unpaid work than men and this fact is no different for South Africa. This study undertakes to value the unpaid work performed by women in South Africa as a percentage of GDP, and their share of the contribution relative to men. This valuation is completed in a quest to figure out if we should be officially and routinely valuing the contribution of women’s unpaid work in South Africa, and to what effect. Using the 2010 Time Use Survey and the 2010 and 2019 Quarterly Labour force earnings data, this study applies the mean/median wage approach, the generalist approach and an additional valuation using the minimum wage, which has not yet been applied by other researchers in the context of South Africa. The study shows that the overall contribution of unpaid work ranges between 9.91% and 27.61% of GDP between 2010 and 2019, across all methods, with women’s share making up more than 70% of the value. This dissertation agrees that we should officially and routinely value unpaid work performed by women, so we can create impactful and relevant policies in this regard.
Description
dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the academic requirements for the degree of Master in Economic Sciences to the Faculty Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economics and Finance, University of the Witwatersrand, 2022