No Study Concluded That Women’s Day-To-Day Chores Are Equivalent of 17 Jobs
The Claim
A United Nations magazine named Mother Care pointed out that women perform daily work equivalent to 17 jobs.
News posted on
Emerging story
Facebook and Twitter users have recently shared news that a United Nations magazine named Mother Care pointed out that women perform daily work equivalent to 17 jobs, from cleaning, education, and health care to psychological guidance and preparing food. The magazine said these works combined should pay a minimum annual salary of 54,000 USD. The magazine could not put a price on how invested and sincere women are at their work.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s team investigated the circulated claim and found it to be fake. There is no such magazine under the name “Mother Care” that is affiliated to the United Nations. By extension, the news that it produced the alleged study concluding that women perform daily work equivalent to 17 jobs is false.
Misbar’s team could not find any similar study about women’s work and its value.
Misbar’s team found non-profits with names similar to the made-up magazine name, including one called “Mothers’ Care,” a national, educational, and health non-profit organization dedicated to helping needy children to live healthy and safe lives in Uganda.
A magazine under the name “Mother’s Care” was also found on Facebook. The magazine defines itself as a platform providing information relevant to the modern family. The magazine is issued from Thailand, which is not affiliated with the United Nations, and did not produce the alleged study.
UN Women said that “women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men.” The UN women’s organization added that: “As a result, they have less time to engage in paid labour, or work longer hours, combining paid and unpaid labour. Women’s unpaid work subsidizes the cost of care that sustains families, supports economies, and often fills in for the lack of social services. Yet, it is rarely recognized as ‘work’.”
UN Women further said that: “Unpaid care and domestic work is valued to be 10 and 39 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product and can contribute more to the economy than the manufacturing, commerce or transportation sectors.”
Of the many think tanks and research centers addressing women’s work at home, the Pew Research Center said:
Overall, mothers at home spend 18 hours a week on child care, compared with 11 hours for working mothers, a seven-hour difference. The child-care time gap between mothers who work outside the home and those who do not is largest among married mothers with working husbands. There is a nine-hour disparity in weekly child-care hours of stay-at-home married mothers with employed husbands (20 hours) compared with working married mothers with employed husbands (11 hours). The difference for cohabiting mothers is seven hours, and it is five hours for single mothers.
Translated by Ahmed N. A. Almassri.
