Women dedicate 5 hours a day to home and family, men not even 2 hours

Who takes care of the household? Who calls the plumber when the bathroom faucet breaks, or the carpenter when a piece of furniture needs replacing? Who talks to the teachers at school? And who cares for the capricious mother-in-law and the father who's starting to suffer from dementia? The woman, always and only the woman. Much more than the man.

A recent statistic The International Labour Organization (ILO) report confirms what we already knew from ISTAT data: the gap between the sexes is enormous and unsustainable. Women in Italy dedicate an average of 5 hours and 5 minutes a day to unpaid care activities. (housework, family, care), while men spend about 1 hour and 48 minutes. More than 4 to 1, and with this proportion we can talk about gender gap to be filled is pure rhetoric.

In many countries, especially in Northern Europe, and also in America, there is talk of the possibility of recognizing the domestic work performed by women and of paying for it. to a form of salary minimum. According to a research by the Oxfam, if American women received a mini-salary for housework, they would earn something like 1.500 billion dollars a year. Already in 2015, Melinda Gates had launched an appeal to unite women in this fight for the recognition of a job that is today completely undeclared. And she had presented a very interesting calculation: if all the women who perform domestic work and care for their families constituted a nation, it would be the fourth largest economy in the world. And a very successful book in America was Getting to 50-50, how working parents can have it all written by Sharon Mears e Joanna StroberHere you will find a series of tips to achieve, clearly and without necessarily triggering conflicts, gender equality in domestic work, which represents another mechanism to recognize and reward women's activities at homeThe most interesting thing about this book is the discovery, through field research, that equalizing household chores makes couples happier and more stable. The relationship grows.

 

Italy is not America, and women seem even more resigned to the idea of ​​such an unfair imbalance in household chores. They rarely even complain about the "second shift," that is, the work they have to do after the activities carried out outside their homes. But, who knows, over time this extra work may become less obvious, and perhaps paid in some way. Meanwhile, it's useful to underline how rhetorical it is to talk about gender equality and women's rights in a country where the gaps, starting with our domestic lifestyles, are so marked and growing. And how necessary it is take examples from different countries, not only from Northern Europe, such as Finland, but also from the Mediterranean area, such as Spain, which provide lessons in Domestic economy starting in middle school. For everyone, girls and boys. Teaching a child to sew or use a washing machine, perhaps inside the civic education programs, is a first step towards training a man who no longer takes it for granted that all the housework falls on women's shoulders.