Two steps to lighten the load of Asia’s poor women
Trini Leung says improving public services is one way to greatly ease the burden for the carers who do the bulk of the housework while holding down jobs, while another is to pay a living wage
Economic growth is always welcomed with open arms, but what if I said that the much-hailed progress we have seen in Asia over the past couple of decades was built on injustice against women?
According to the International Monetary Fund, the region’s economy grew at an average of 6 per cent a year between 1990 and 2015. But this growth was made possible in part by countries building their global competitiveness on the backs of poor women, who were paid low wages and made to work in substandard conditions.
Be wary of effusive praise for women’s achievements – gender inequality is still entrenched in Hong Kong
It is disturbing to see such little progress in women workers’ livelihoods compared with 30 years ago, when I began working in this area. We must find the missing link between women’s development and overall growth.
Our new report, “Underpaid and undervalued”, recommends two policies that will alleviate gender inequality and have a knock-on effect on economic inequality: redistributing women’s care work, and adopting the idea of the living wage.
Care work, because it is tied to the definition of womanhood and its narrative of self-sacrifice, is unpaid, undervalued and unrecognised. It sustains the labour force that allows the economy to thrive in the first place. Care work typically adds between two and four hours to a woman’s day, resulting in the so-called women’s double day.
