Women work for free while billionaires accumulate wealth

From birth to death, no matter where we are, someone hopefully takes care of us. Likely, it is a woman who is not being paid for it. This unpaid care work amounts to $11 trillion, Oxfam has calculated.

Every day women and girls around the world spend 12 million hours caring for children and elderly people, and doing domestic work. If that work were paid according to the minimum wage of the respective countries, the sum would be more than 11 trillion dollars a year.

These numbers are calculated by Oxfam and included in their yearly report that was presented on the annual World Economic Forum in Davos.

Good care work is an essential foundation for other economic activities; the whole economic system would not function without it and this foundation system is not economically valued.

Unpaid care work: The foundation of global inequality

Economic inequality in the world is disproportionate. The poor half of the world population owns less than 1% of the world's wealth. At the same time 45% of wealth is concentrated in the hands of less than 1% of population: 2,153 billionaires. But what is the connection between this drastic inequality and unpaid care work done by women?

Hours spent by women and girls around the globe for care work limit their access to education and the labor market. They earn less or no money and have fewer chances to become economically independent and accumulate wealth. 

An 8-year-old girl spends 30% more time helping out at home than her twin brother. This percentage rises to 50% when she turns 10. This leads to a higher possibility of her staying at home and not getting a job at all. Globally, 42% of women working age are outside the labor market because of their unpaid care responsibilities — and only 6% of men.

Women around the world work too much, and their work is often unpaid, unrecognized and invisible, argues Oxfam.