Stay-at-home Moms face bias when attempting to return-to-work. HR Manager's ask, "When did you last received a paycheck?"
We've heard it!
When answering experiential questions, "Describe how a challenge in a project you managed." You describe a scenario managing a marketing endeavor for a non-profit. They follow with, "And, were you paid for that?"
Truly! If unpaid, the employer dismisses it. "Unpaid" translates to "No Value".
This is a barrier to equity.
"The Economy Ministry published a report on the unpaid care economy. It found that unpaid care and domestic work amount to almost 16 percent of G.D.P. — making it the largest sector of their country's economy — and that 75 percent of care work is carried out by women." Secretariat of Economic Policy, National Directorate of Economy, Equality and Gender, Ministry of Economy, Argentina (link)
An inequity, for sure. It is a pay "gap". Yet this gap is not included in any particular company's wage gap calculation nor our National Wage Gap metric. That metric, in essence, compares two people (male & female) in similar roles.
This scenario impacts women longer than the years they serve as 'unpaid caregivers' thus keeping them sidelined and under-employed potentially for their remaining employable years.
Photo Credit...Sarah Pabst for The New York Times Mercedes D’Alessandro, left, Vilma Ibarra, center, and Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta at the Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Argentina's leaders are making plans to change how care-giving is rewarded and measured economically. In a New York Times article titled, "These Three Feminists Are Changing Argentina From the Inside"
At University of St. Joseph’s Women In Leadership Event focused on preparing women for politics, we learned that in order for change to happen, there needs to be a quorum of women in our governing body. A quorum, not just one or two outliers fitting into a male agenda.
What are OUR plans to address the gender gap in unpaid domestic work and care?