Women Bear Burden of Home Care
Washington, DC, March 8, 2004 (PAHO)—The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Monday marked Women's International Day by noting that women overwhelmingly bear the brunt of home health care in the Americas.
 From the left: Elsa Gómez, Rubén Suarez, Félix Rigoli, and Pat Armstrong (click on the photo for a higher resolution)"An estimated 80 percent health care is provided in the home, basically by women," said PAHO Director Dr. Mirta Roses Periago in a statement delivered from Nicaragua, where she is on an official visit.
"The time that women invest in caring for others reduces their potential to develop their human capital. Assuming that providing family health care does not have personal, family, and social consequences is unfair, unrealistic, and dangerous for health policy."
What would happen, she asked, "if all the women of the world decided to go on strike and for just one day refused to provide health care in their homes and communities? What would be the catastrophic implications for global well-being?"
Roses addressed a panel presentation at PAHO's Washington, D.C., headquarters, on the topic of women's unpaid labor in the health sector. She spoke from Nicaragua, sitting next to Nicaraguan Health Minister Jose Antonio Alvarado who said that women and their role in that country's health and other policies would have a key role in the drafting of a new national health plan, now underway.
The panel -- chaired by Dr. Elsa Gomez, Unit Chief PAHO's Gender and Health office - also included Pat Armstrong, professor of the Department of Sociology of Canada's York University.
"Care work is women's work. Paid and unpaid, located at home, in voluntary organizations or in the labor force, the overwhelming majority of care is provided by women," Armstrong told the panel. "It is often invisible, usually accorded little value and only sometime recognize as skilled."
"Unpaid care constitutes an underground economy," she added.
Armstrong concluded that by "making care visible and beginning by making it the objective, we can then work towards solutions that give as many people as possible the right to care. Care is the objective, not the problem."
In most Latin American and Caribbean nations between 50 percent and 75 percent of health workers are women.
Ruben Suarez Berenguela, an expert with PAHO's Health Policies and Systems Unit, said that this unpaid work must be taken into account. "All economic indicators refer to households as consumers, but one has to think of households as producers of families' well-being and human development," he said.
The audience also heard from Felix Rigoli, of PAHO's Human Resources Development Unit, and Maria Rosa Renzi, of the Economics Unit of UNDP.
The panelists all noted there are a number of steps that have to be taken to alleviate this burden on many women. They include increasing the support to community programs and local health centers so they can assume a larger share of the health care burden; considering government tax relief for families or persons who have significant health care responsibility; and analyzing the impact of health care reforms on home care.
"We need to shine a spotlight on unremunerated health care, to lift the veil of invisibility, to make it part of health policy," Dr. Roses said. "Let us open the doors to reveal and understand the invisible work of women in health care, changing our course toward care for all and with all as a shared, equitable, and sustainable social responsibility."
PAHO was established in 1902 and is the world's oldest public health organization. PAHO works with all the countries of the Americas to improve the health and the quality of life of people of the Americas. It serves as the Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization (WHO). PAHO Member States today include all 35 countries in the Americas. France, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are Participating States. Portugal and Spain are Observer States, and Puerto Rico is an Associate Member.
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