Work and care: gender inequalities in the COVID-19 pandemic in El Salvador

Abstract

Care work is vital for social reproduction but relies almost exclusively on women; in addition to this, social reproduction activities are generally unpaid, undermining their role in sustaining the economy and life itself. This historic burden on women impacts their access to the labor market, the quality of their jobs, and their physical, mental, and emotional health. In this paper, we find evidence of gender inequalities in the labor market and their relationship with time allocation and unpaid care work in El Salvador, a Central American country. We use the Encuesta de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples for 2019 and 2020 to identify the hours women and men spent in care before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they differ according to their position in the workforce, the presence of children, and their ages. According to the results, in 2019, female workers allocated 22.6 hours per week to care activities and 26.8 hours when they had children, while men spent 7.6 hours per week and 8.8 when they had children. This shows that women work three times more per week in care activities than men, and even more when they have children. Additionally, the care workload increases to up to 33.6 hours per week for women with children of 5 years old or younger. Since many women had to work from home during the pandemic, social reproduction activities overlapped with their job responsibilities. In fact, in 2020, the care workload demanded up to 24 hours per week from female workers’ time, 28 if they had children, while men allocated 8 to 9 hours per week to these activities. This work intensity requires women to stop working or to become self-employed, more likely in the informal sector.