Women in Latin America and the Caribbean - Cepal

92
14
Figure II.14
TOTAL WORKLOAD, HOURS OF PAID WORK PLUS
HOURS SPENT ON DOMESTIC WORK a
12
11.8
12.8
11.9
Hours per day
10
8
6
10.8
10.8
3.3 5.1 2.6
6.0
10.6
2.8
4.3
4
7.5
6.7
8.2
6.9
7.8 7.6
2
0
Men Women Men Women Men Women
Bolivia, 2001 Guatemala, 2000 Nicaragua, 1998
Hours of paid work per day Hours of domestic work per day Total hours worked per day
Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), on the basis of special tabulations of time-use
modules in the household surveys of the countries concerned (Bolivia, 2001; Guatemala, 2000; Nicaragua, 1998).
a
Includes only people in paid employment stating that they had participated in one or more domestic activities the day before
the survey.
Having someone in the household engaged exclusively on domestic tasks affects men’s
involvement in tasks of this kind very differently from that of the household’s other women. Results from
five countries in the region show that men spend almost the same number of hours on unpaid domestic
work when there is a “housewife” in the home as when there is not. For other women in those same
households, however, it makes a great difference: having someone else in the home carrying out domestic
tasks substantially reduces the time they spend on these, which ought to make a great difference to the
amount of time they are able to give to other activities or to rest and leisure (Milosavljevic and Tacla,
2007). This supposition is borne out by the answers to survey questions about what people did the
previous day (Bolivia, 2001; Guatemala, 2000; Nicaragua, 1998) and the previous week (Ecuador, 2004;
Mexico, 2002) (see figures II.15 and II.16).