Social Panorama of Latin America 2021

Abstract

A number of surveys conducted in different Latin American countries provide data on the excessive burden of domestic and unpaid care work that women were confronted within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Americas and the Caribbean Regional Office of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) conducted Rapid Gender Assessment Surveys in Chile, Colombia and Mexico during the second half of 2020 to assess the impact of COVID-19. The results indicate that the time spent on feeding, cleaning and playing with children had increased by a greater proportion among women than men, with a percentage difference averaging 8.4 points. Particularly salient is the increased effort that women with dependent children and adolescents had to put into teaching and coaching them because of school closures. The gap between the time spent by women and men on these tasks averaged 12.3 percentage points in the three countries. The National Time Use Survey (ENUT) published by Colombia’s National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) can be used to compare the time spent on unpaid working activities and personal activities in the periods January–April 2017, September–December 2020 and January–April 2021. Between January and April 2021, 79.3% of women aged 10 and over participated in activities related to food provision, while only 32.3% of men did so. In both cases, participation was higher than in the period from January to April 2017. A similar ratio is found in activities related to cleaning and maintenance.