Caring is working

By Diana Murrieta

Care work is nowadays one of the main issues on the gender agenda in our country. We have key examples of municipalities that have implemented comprehensive care systems, such as Zapopan and Iztapalapa. However, the discussion about the importance and even the economic impact of care is beginning to gain relevance in international agendas and discussions about women's rights and the recognition of caregivers.

Care work has its origins in the need to ensure the well-being of the most vulnerable members of our community, such as children, the elderly and the sick. Since the beginning of society, these tasks were performed in the home and the community, being mainly the responsibility of women.

Throughout the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, feminism and various social movements were instrumental in getting women to start working outside the home. However, care work did not disappear; rather, it continued to be invisible and unpaid.

Currently, the struggle is focused on the recognition of these jobs not only as domestic functions, but as fundamental to social functioning. These jobs have historically been devalued and excluded from public policies, despite being as important as any other care profession, such as health and education.

The first formal recognition of care work as essential and paid work was in New Zealand in 1938, with the implementation of the Social Welfare Act, which established wages for domestic workers, recognizing their fundamental role in social welfare.

In contrast, in Mexico, according to INEGI, women perform approximately 75% of all unpaid care work, which directly affects their ability to study, work and participate in public life. These tasks include caring for children, adults, food preparation, cleaning, among others.

It is not surprising that this issue is now on all gender agendas at all levels of government in this six-year term. Before this, we already had the first comprehensive care systems in the country. Zapopan was a pioneer in Mexico in developing a regulation that included care work in the public agenda, thanks to the now local deputy Gabriela Cárdenas. Currently, in Zapopan a budget is allocated for caregivers under the program "Cuida a quien te cuida" (Take care of those who take care of you), promoted by this legislator.

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