Current Trend in Gender Stereotypes and Unpaid Care Work: Evidence From Three Countries, the UK, Nigeria, and Ghana

Abstract

Unpaid caregiving is a worldwide phenomenon. 42% of women cannot secure jobs because they are responsible for caregiving. Women and girls undertake more than 75% of unpaid care work in the world. The UN Sustainable Development Goals 5 and target 5.4 aim to promote the rights and well-being of women and care providers but will remain unattainable if the rising trend in unpaid care work is ‘unchecked’. To interrogate present developments in unpaid care work, this article critically examines the trend in three countries: the United Kingdom, Nigeria, and Ghana. This study is important because, despite years of awareness, there appears to be an uneven change in the situation of unpaid care work globally. Gender stereotypes continue to be a cultural concern. This paper leveraged the Altercasting Theory and textual content analysis method. The study concludes that there is still a need to improve the situation of unpaid care work as it is not adequately indexed in the national economic indicators of some countries.