Women doing 72% of unpaid work has egregious outcomes that are totally gendered; Australian males lives ride on the exploitation of women’s work.
“Men won’t easily give up a system in which half the world’s population works for next to nothing,” New Zealand feminist economist and former politician Professor Marilyn Waring CNZM said.
“I’m not talking about repaying this time. It’s about the redistribution of government resources. It’s a productivity and choice issue. Why should women spend all their time in unpaid work on a road to poverty. The poorer I am, the longer it takes me to do the things I need to do.
“In 2017, Price Waterhouse Cooper research concluded women undertook 72 per cent of all unpaid work in Australia. The bulk of this unpaid work is childcare. It is Australia’s largest industry – three times the financial and insurance services industry, the largest industry in the formal economy. The rest of unpaid work combined is the second largest sector in the Australian economy.
“This has egregious outcomes that are totally gendered; childcare, superannuation, equal pay and pay equity, the right to leisure – Australian males lives ride on the exploitation of women’s work,” said Waring.