The Role of Unpaid Care Work in the Socioeconomic Gender Gap
Client
Gender Gap Analysis
Faculty
Aram Hur
Team
Weikun Dang, Kyung-duk Park, Diana Rañola
| Despite a surge in international policy efforts to empower women economically, the socioeconomic gender gap persists. While most studies debate the effectiveness of formal policies, a Capstone team explored an informal barrier: unpaid care work—the care of people without remuneration—which women on average spend substantially more time doing than men. The team hypothesized that the gender disparity in allocating care responsibilities undermines women’s economic status by decreasing the effectiveness of formal policies. The team combined a cross-national analysis of over 100 country observations with a within-country, individual-level analyses. Their research revealed that unpaid care work not only directly affects economic outcomes for women, but also indirectly impedes the formal policies that are in place to help women because unpaid care is often not addressed in these policies. Their findings suggest that narrowing the gender gap requires formal policies that consider the hidden cost of unpaid gendered work. |
Capstone Course
Focus Areas
Capstone Year
2017-2018