Accra: Unpaid care work in Ghana is a significant yet often overlooked issue, particularly affecting women due to cultural and traditional biases. This pervasive problem undermines the dignity of women in society, as they disproportionately bear the burden of unpaid domestic tasks.
According to Ghana News Agency, Ghana ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1986, which aims to recognize the value of unpaid domestic work and promote equal sharing of responsibilities within households. Additionally, Ghana is part of the 2023 International Labour Organization (ILO) Resolution on Decent Work and the Care Economy, which acknowledges care work as crucial to sustainable development and encourages policies to redistribute care responsibilities and support caregivers.
The 2020 Ghana Time Use Survey by the Ghana Statistical Service highlights that women in Ghana spend an average of 6.4 hours daily on unpaid care and domestic work, compared to 1.7 hours spent by men. A UN Women study further reveals that women and girls aged 15 and above spend 15.5% of their time on unpaid domestic tasks, more than three times the 4.6% spent by men. Overall, women perform over 76% of all unpaid care work nationwide, with disparities even sharper in rural areas.
Unpaid care work, which includes essential household and caregiving tasks, remains unrecognized and disproportionately performed by women and girls. Mrs. Alhassan Bushira, Northern Regional Director of the Department of Gender and Social Protection, describes it as a persistent barrier to gender equality, limiting women's participation in education, employment, leadership, and personal development.
Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) calls for recognition and valuation of unpaid care work through public services, infrastructure, and shared household responsibilities. Madam Esther Nyamekye Opoku, Programmes Director of the Center for Opportunities and Rural Development (CORD-Ghana), emphasizes the invisibility of unpaid care work in national development frameworks and budgeting, advocating for its institutionalization through policy, data collection, and funding.
Despite interventions like clean cooking fuels, CHPS compounds, boreholes, and improved cookstoves, many are non-functional or inadequate. Esther Nyamekye Opoku warns against superficial responses, advocating for sustainable, community-based solutions and multi-sectoral responses involving various ministries and civil society organizations.
Recommendations include integrating unpaid care work indicators into national development plans, ensuring reliable access to essential services, promoting flexible work arrangements, and encouraging men and boys to share household responsibilities. Resources from key NGOs working within gender frameworks should be managed in a unified national pool to spearhead effective policies.
The statistics underscore the disproportionate share of unpaid care work carried by women in Ghana, limiting their potential and hindering national progress towards inclusive development and gender equality. Recognizing, reducing, and redistributing unpaid care work is a matter of justice and sustainable development.
