ABSTRACT
The extra burden of unpaid care on women operates in high income as well as poor countries and does not disappear with economic growth. Women’s disparate burden of unpaid care holds true for both traditionalist and modernist settings. The allocation of care to women is in some part physiological, at the stage of birthing and breastfeeding, but in larger part based on gender stereotypes and on an economic premise which allows the use of women’s unpaid labour. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women requires states to ensure that family education includes a proper understanding of maternity as a social function and the recognition of the common responsibility of men and women in the upbringing and development of their children. The Committee rejects the encouragement of women’s part-time work as a solution to the problem of their combining care and paid work.
