By Jorge Moreira da Silva, Director, Development Co-operation Directorate, OECD

The way we currently measure our economies ignores a large portion of work that affects all of us. Most of this work is done by women and girls for free, every day. Around the world, they are responsible for 75% of unpaid care and domestic work in our homes and communities (see Figure 1). So these issues are not just hypothetical, but critical to achieving inclusive economic growth and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Figure 1: Gender gaps in unpaid care work by geographic region

Note: NA stands for North America, ECA for Europe and Central Asia, LAC for Latin America and the Caribbean, EAP for East Asia and the Pacific, SSA for Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA for Middle East and North Africa, SA for South Asia.  

Source: OECD Gender Institutions and Development Database (GID-DB), 2019, oecd.stat.org.

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