Project wants to bring ‘care economy’ into GDP

The city of Belém (PA) started to develop a pilot project that intends to support women inserted in the so-called care economy. The area brings together a series of activities historically associated with the female population, which is often not even paid for carrying out the tasks.

This list of so-called ‘invisible jobs’ ranges from household chores to caring for children, the elderly and people with disabilities.

According to those responsible for the project, one of the objectives is to create alternatives so that women caregivers can progress in the job market and achieve better remuneration conditions, whether in the same area or in other sectors of the local economy.

The initiative was born from a partnership between the Open Society Foundations, founded by mega-investor George Soros, UN Women Brazil and the City of Belém.

The program is expected to last until August 2024, with funding of US$ 700,000. The resource source is the Open Society.

The creation of the project was formalized at the end of May. Since then, city hall agents began to receive training to understand the characteristics of the care economy, says Alfredo Costa, president of Funpapa (Fundação Papa João 23). The body is responsible for managing social assistance policies in Belém.

According to Costa, the training of the teams should extend for another two or three months. Then, the goal is to begin mapping the needs of women in the care economy.

“The policies that will be implemented are not yet defined. They will be elaborated from the analysis”, says Costa. “For example, courses can be created that help these women in terms of financial autonomy”, she adds.

According to Pedro Abramovay, director for Latin America and the Caribbean at Open Society Foundations, the initiative is a pioneer in Brazil. “People don’t live without care. What happens is that, historically, this role has been placed on women, and often without pay”, he reports.

Abramovay states that it is necessary to “include” this type of action in the GDP (Gross Domestic Product). According to him, the policies that should be designed in Belém depend on the analysis of local needs.

It is possible, he says, that part of the women caregivers cannot work outside the home due to the lack of daycare centers at certain times or regions of the capital of Pará.

If this situation is diagnosed, the mapping may open paths to possible solutions to the problem, including proposing the opening of new daycare centers for the public authorities.

“It is necessary to locate people. The state takes on the training to put them back in the job market. If a woman knows how to take care of the elderly, for example, she can be hired to do so.”

In a similar project with the participation of the Open Society in Bogotá, Colombia, a bus runs through the city with various services for women caregivers, from offering job vacancies to obtaining documents.

According to Abramovay, in addition to the interest of the Municipality of Belém, the fact that the municipality is in the Amazon region, the focus of international eyes, also influenced the choice for the capital of Pará.

“Any project to preserve the Amazon must have people at the center. It is necessary to think about the development of cities in the region”, he says.

Responsibilities rebalancing

In the announcement of the project, those responsible for the initiative cited data from the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) which indicate that women dedicate 73% more time to housework and care tasks compared to men – both exclusively as well as an extra day.

This is seen as a factor that limits their participation in personal and professional development activities.

“It is necessary to call attention to the co-responsibility of care. Care should not be inherent to women. The idea [do projeto de Belém] is also discussing the roles of society”, points out Vanessa Sampaio, manager of the economic empowerment area at UN Women Brazil.

She underlines that the pandemic has increased the demand for care actions. It was precisely the female part of society that felt the burden the most, says Vanessa.

According to her, the project in the capital of Pará intends to develop a care system that works in an integrated way, with day care centers and other assistance institutions in the areas of education and health. For women, one of the goals is to provide training, she says.

“There are women who work as caregivers for the elderly, for example, and often they are not formalized. The intention is to offer training so that they can be part of the formal job market.”
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