What are the Key Findings of the Report?
Gender Disparities in Health and Care Workforce
- With women constituting 67% of the paid global health and care workforce and contributing to approximately 76% of all unpaid care activities, significant gender gaps in both paid and unpaid care work are evident.
- Women in low- or middle-income countries could potentially benefit by USD 9 trillion if their pay and access to paid work were on par with men's.
Inadequate Representation in Decision-Making
- Women lack adequate representation in decision-making roles, being overrepresented in lower-status positions like nurses and midwives while being underrepresented in leadership roles.
- Medical specialties remain predominantly male-dominated, with women comprising between 25% to 60% of doctors and varying from 30% to 100% of nursing staff across 35 countries.
Underinvestment in Health Systems
Persistent underinvestment in health and care work results in a detrimental cycle of unpaid care work, reducing women's participation in paid labor markets, hindering economic empowerment, and obstructing gender equality.
Devaluation of Caregiving
Caregiving, predominantly undertaken by women, is undervalued, leading to lower wages, unfavorable working conditions, reduced productivity, and negative economic consequences within the sector.
Implications of Gender Pay Gaps
- Gender pay gaps restrict women's ability to invest in their families and communities, where they are more likely to reinvest.
- Globally, approximately 90% of women's earnings are directed towards their families' well-being, in contrast to only 30-40% of men's earnings.
Heightened Levels of Violence
- Women working in healthcare are disproportionately subjected to higher levels of gender-based violence.
- Roughly a quarter of workplace violence across all sectors globally occurs in healthcare, with at least half of healthcare sector employees reporting experiences of violence in the workplace.
Indian Scenario
- In India, women spend around 73% of their total daily working time on unpaid work, compared to men who dedicate only about 11% of their daily working time to unpaid tasks.
- In the United Kingdom, nearly 4.5 million people engaged in unpaid work during the Covid-19 pandemic, of whom 59% were women, with almost 3 million working simultaneously.
Global Crisis of Care
- Decades of insufficient investment in health and care work contribute to a burgeoning global care crisis.
- Lack of progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) leaves billions without full access to essential health services, exacerbating the burden of unpaid care work on women.
Key Recommendations
- Enhance working conditions across all health and care occupations, particularly those predominantly held by women.
- Promote greater gender equity in the paid labor force.
- Improve working conditions and wages in the health and care workforce, ensuring equal pay for equivalent work.
- Address the gender gap in care provision, bolster quality care work, and safeguard the rights and well-being of caregivers.
- Ensure national statistics comprehensively account for, measure, and value all health and care work.
Invest in robust public health systems.
