Equality
for Cambodian women begins at home
There's no country in the
world where men and women perform an equal share of overdue care or ménage
work. According to a report released by International Labor Organization (ILO)
in 2018 on care work and care jobs, in the Asia- Pacific, women disproportionately
spend further time – up to four times further – on overdue care work compared
to men.
In Cambodia, the
imbalance is particularly severe. Cambodian men, as misters, perform only
one-tenth of their families’ minding and ménage services per day, while women
perform the vast maturity of the cuisine, cleaning, and direct care workers.
Cambodian men spend 18 twinkles on this work per day compared with the 188
twinkles spent by women, according to the ILO. Surprisingly, out of the 67
countries surveyed in the report, it's Cambodia’s men who spend the least
quantum of time contributing to this type of labor.
This enormous gap needs
to be closed for our society to achieve the full profitable and societal
addition of women. Without a proper result to this issue, the illegal
allocation of ménage chores will continue to impact women’s openings for
profitable participation and broader societal donation.
This is an issue that has
a real impact on our society as a whole, but we can’t forget the impact it has
on individuals and families. A recent composition on this content from the
Phnom Penh Post featured the story of Carolina, a Cambodian woman who's a woman
and mama of six youthful children. She says that working at night is the only
income-generating option she has, given that her time is consumed by ménage
chores and childcare duties during the day. Carolina’s case reflects the
experience of other Cambodian women who not only deal with the heavy burden of
poverty, but also must manage – frequently solely – the burden of doing ménage
chores, minding for children, the ill, and the senior.
Cambodia’s women labor
made up roughly 48 percent of the total labor force as of 2018, or about 80
percent of the total womanish population in Cambodia. A fair share of women’s
participation in the labor request seems like an unmitigated achievement.
still, as Saroeuna’s case illustrates, women’s participation in formal
frugality doesn't automatically mean that they can completely use the openings
and benefits that should be available to them.
Grounded on the OECD’s
principle of inclusive growth, women and men should both be suitable to
contribute to and gain full benefits from profitable growth. Women who are in
Saroeuna’s position, who are only suitable to work at night or in between hours
of overdue ménage and care work, are likely to struggle to gain the full
benefit of their work. The implicit reasons are numerous first, Saroeuna might
not be suitable to release her eventuality due to her frazzle from day
housework duties, not to mention the numerous pitfalls involved with night
shift jobs for women in Cambodia. The high number of women sharing in the
frugality doesn't inescapably point to their profitable addition.
Societal prospects about
women’s part in the family play a large part in limiting their eventuality to
share in profitable conditioning freely and laboriously, refocused Celia Boyd,
the Managing Director of SHE Investments, a social enterprise that supports
small businesses run by Cambodian women. The ménage burden has averted
Cambodia’s women from realizing their eventuality as some of them choose to
quit their job or business due to the overburden of housework and care work.
This situation has only
been worsened during the COVID- 19 epidemic, as reported by a recent United
Nations Gender Equality Country Analysis. According to the theU.N., lockdowns
and other health measures (including academy closures) have increased Cambodian
women’s domestic burden, similar to drawing and cooking, aiding children with
their practice, and supporting elders.
This demanding but
overdue domestic work affects women’s capability to devote themselves
completely to profitable participation outside of the home. With limited time
and energy to advance themselves, women are barred from education, employment,
and profitable openings, performing in some of them have little choice but to
remain housewives, while others are pushed into the informal sector, earning a
lower income, and remaining more vulnerable to labor exploitation.
A 2012 study on Unsexed
Meanings of Housework (Non)- Participation in Cambodia, grounded on oral
histories, focus groups, and interviews, set up that Cambodia’s uneven division
of overdue labor is grounded both on tradition – with the home being perceived
as a direct reflection of women’s “probity and domestic chops” – and on
profitable necessity. Historically, wedded Cambodian women who aren't involved
in income-earning conditioning, or who earn lower than their misters, don't
dare to ask or challenge their misters to partake in the ménage burden. As the
paper points out, “women feel it necessary to sustain the status quo,
originally, because they perceive they've no volition option than to do so, and
secondly, because housework neglect may, in their eyes, affect in abandonment,
separation, or divorce.”
While the root of this
labor burden imbalance has been completely unpacked by experimenters, the
question remains Are there any Cambodian government programs that have been
designed to respond to this unstable division of ménage labor and its impact on
women’s profitable addition?
Even though Cambodia’s
1993 Constitution states that housework holds the same value as work outside
the home, in practice this doesn't feel to be the case. In Cambodia, the
government still treats the illegal sharing of housework and care work as a
minor problem.
Presently, there's no
practical medium or legislative frame to encourage men to partake in the
responsibility for housework with their mates. Because it doesn't induce
income, overdue work isn't included in the public account. Despite being a
diurnal necessity for every ménage; still, policymakers don't see overdue work
as contributing to overall profitable growth. Hence, policymakers haven't
addressed overdue work issues through public programs, similar to Cambodia’s
macroeconomic policy, the National Action Plan to help Violence against Women,
and Cambodia’s Gender Strategic Plan (Neary Rattanak).
But there are ways that
Cambodia could take. We could look to Japan as an illustration. In 2021, the
country passed a bill to revise the law on child care leave, allowing fathers
to take an aggregate of four weeks out, giving fathers more inflexibility to
partake in the burden of care. This four-week paid maternity leave will come
into effect on October 1, 2022. There are no specific maternity leave
entitlements in Cambodia’s Labor Law.
In answer to women’s
profitable inequality and uneven share of domestic work, women’s fiscal
independence and stability are the keys. The Asian Development Bank has suggested
that to address this issue, the government should support the growth of
stipends and employment openings and ameliorate working conditions for women
through stronger enforcement of revised laws and regulations and access to
training for women.
Once Cambodia’s women are
well-equipped with chops and could earn a good income, the thinking is that
whether they want it or not, their consorts have to partake in the ménage
responsibility. When the burden of ménage labor doesn't fall solely on women,
they will be more likely to be laboriously involved in profitable conditioning
of their choosing outside of the home. Only also will they achieve their full
profitable addition.