Unpaid Work: A Measure of Women's Equality
by Kathryn Spracklin

As MAW members write, read and think about this KTR, we are collectively rising from our kitchen tables to take one more step forward. The production of this KTR marks the end of this phase of MAW's project to increase the visibility of women's unpaid work. Together the KTRs represent our efforts to analyze this issue with our members and to work towards a more equitable economic and social system, Step by Step.

It is a confident step forward, because as women we have finally risen from the table to open the kitchen window on our work. For the first time our work is given concrete form, albeit an incomplete one, through the questions on unpaid work on the 1996 Canadian Census of Population. But while we are moving toward equity and justice we must be mindful of that destination, as individuals, as MAW members, as an organization. For if we don't act to shape the discussion of work as it becomes increasingly mainstream, it may lead us to an entirely different place.

A quick review of current publications - economic, parenting, feminist, social justice - or a surf on the Internet makes it clear that the relationship between paid and unpaid work is of current concern to a number of constituencies and is being explored in a variety of ways.

The predominant focus of the discussion beyond the personal is on the corporate response to the tension between paid and unpaid work: mainly the "family friendly" corporate policies women have fought for since entering a paid workforce traditionally hostile to their needs.

When it comes to corporate policy, it seems we have come a long way. The June 1996 issue of Transitions, the magazine of the Vanier Institute of the Family, is devoted to the work-family issue. Articles speak of a "growing awareness" by Canadian managers of the importance of flexibility and balance to their employees well-being - and the corporate bottom line. It's an awareness that has led to positive change: 80 per cent of large and mid-size Canadian companies now have policies to help employees manage work and family responsibilities.

A similar change is ongoing in the United States. An Internet review of "The 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers," a US list celebrating its tenth anniversary edition this year, cites "tremendous gains for working mothers" over the last decade. Corporate culture, authors Milton Moskowitz and Carol Townsend claim, is responding to women's needs. Ten years ago, for example, no one would have expected IBM to set up a $50 million fund for child and elder care, or that before- and after-school leave would be commonplace, at least among the "Working Mother 100." And all of these gains despite the poor state of the economy. Moskowitz and Townsend call it a "revolution."

The issue is most commonly framed in oppositional terms; work and family are polarized, in conflict. This misguided approach supports the outdated concept of the separate public and private spheres of work, the traditional gender division of labour. And while it is positive that attention is shifting to how paid work can be restructured (to some degree) to accommodate unpaid work, rather than the opposite, I see little evidence that work as a concept is being examined and redefined in terms that include both paid and unpaid labour.

In many contexts, the tenor of the debate suggests that unpaid work - stated not in those terms, but as "family" - is of lesser value than paid work. A good example is an article on job sharing in the September 1996 issue of Parents magazine, a very mainstream American publication. Writer Marilyn Gardner describes two mothers who share one executive secretary job at Dupont, in Wilmington, Delaware, offering each of them a work schedule "most working moms dream of." One woman is at the desk two days a week and has "five free days to spend with her daughters," while the other fills the position three days a week and "looks forward to four days off with her ten-month-old son."

Job sharing is an option - taken mainly by "moms," writes Gardner - that allows a greater opportunity for balancing paid and unpaid work, an opportunity for women and men to spend more time with their children. However, when a woman is caring for three daughters or a ten-month-old, as well as fulfilling volunteer work and other unpaid commitments, her days are neither "off" nor "free." Simply excluding the words "off" and "free" would have provided an entirely different sense of what it means to be at home with children: unpaid work that is challenging as well as rewarding, not a holiday.

Despite superficial corporate support for family friendly policies and alternative work arrangements like job sharing, true restructuring of paid work has yet to begin. The policies may be in place, but practices, writes Nora Spinks in Transitions, have yet to change. There is also evidence that employees may well be penalized for taking advantage of these policies, possibly men more than women. However much we reiterate that balancing paid and unpaid work is an issue for men and women, until discussion of this issue includes an analysis of unpaid work, it is imbued with a traditional sexist value system that says: this really is just a woman's problem.

In response to MAW members concerns about time use as the "gold standard" in measuring unpaid work, Evelyn Drescher's "So What Did You Do All Day?" examines the methodology in greater depth. We must ensure we understand the advantages and limitations of the methods used to examine our work and the ramifications of their use for women's equality. For more information on the various statistical methods for measuring women's unpaid work, see KTR Issue #3.

"The Work Done By Any Ranch Wife," by Marilyn Atkinson, reveals how statistics are essential to our goals, but how appropriate analysis and policy development by organizations and governments are necessary to yield real gains for women.

And that is the next step for MAW. While the statisticians crunch the numbers from the 1996 Census - numbers that will add concrete, physical evidence of the structure, content and value of our unpaid work - we will be completing a thorough policy analysis of unpaid work to put that data in a meaningful context and to ensure it is used to develop policy that will further women's equality.

When we began the first phase of this project in 1994, our goal was to enable women to participate in the process of measuring and valuing unpaid work, beginning with getting questions on the 1996 Census. While we have achieved our initial objectives, it is time to reiterate them. We must remain a part of the process, learning and acting together, reshaping work as we step forward from the heat of the kitchen to the heart of the battle, and home again.

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