Women deserve to be better paid in the workplace and to do much less unpaid work at home. Things are improving slowly but we all must do more. Most of us can start immediately. We can all raise awareness of the problem. Men can do more unpaid work at home and employers have to look closely at what they can do to redress the balance.
If you do not care about the gender pay gap, which affects us all, or you are not inclined to do anything yourself please spend 30 minutes listening to the programme at the end of this link and weep. The BBC Radio 4 Analysis programme The Real Gender Pay Gap is an indictment of how we treat women.
We have responsibility as employers and as citizens to act now. Only by investing a little time in understanding the problem can we appreciate the scale of the injustice most women face.
The starting point is to put a money value on all unpaid work and measure the amount of unpaid work we do. To be clear, unpaid work can include housework, caregiving, gardening, providing emotional and practical family support and voluntary work in the third sector. Only, once all unpaid work is measured and accurately valued can we fully understand what we are contributing individually and what damage we are causing by not sharing the burden. In economic terms, doing less unpaid work means more time available for paid work, but more importantly, increased well-being and richer relationships
If you are rubbish at housework it makes sense to pay someone who is better at it to do it for you. Why not pay a member of your family? It is good for the economy to get someone to pay you to clean their house and for you to pay someone to clean yours.
For those of you who don’t get it, some things to avoid saying to get you started: “If only you’d asked dear”, “I don’t know how it works”, “Where do you keep the Hoover?”, “Can I help you?”, “I never complain if it’s not done”. Get your finger out lads!
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