27.01.2021

Care work and the Pandemic - Policy Brief

The feminization, invisibilization, and undervaluation of care work are three factors that contribute in major ways to the precarity of women’s lives and livelihoods. In order to counter the essentialization and limiting of gender roles that reproduce inequalities between men and women, we must advocate for fair policies that seek to challenge the rigid division between the "public" and "private" spheres.

This policy brief will go over this division as it operates in current understandings of care work in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and as it informs social protection design. The brief will also recommend measures that strive for gender equity, and equal valuation of and opportunities for work.