Rural women in Latin America spend three times more time caring than men

Caring for children and the elderly in rural areas is a task that continues to fall largely on women in Latin America : they spend three times as much time on these tasks as men.

This is the conclusion of the study “The care economy in rural areas of the Americas”, which was presented this Thursday in San José , Costa Rica, within the framework of the Fifth Permanent Forum of Ministers, Vice Ministers and Senior Officials of the Americas (Fopema).

The document was presented at this meeting held at the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) , which determines that “addressing the care crisis with a territorial focus is key and strategic in terms of the sustainability of agri-food systems.

In figures, women spend between 22 and 49 hours a week on care activities, while men spend between 6.7 and 19.8 hours, a reality that worsens between 7 and 10 hours in the case of rural women.

This means that those who produce half of the food do so at the same time as carrying out unpaid activities.

Invisibility

For the Director General of IICA, Manuel Otero , the redistribution of care is of significant importance because, historically, it has been relegated to the private sphere and has been associated with the role of women.

In the field of agri-food systems, they cover “maintaining health, the well-being of producers, the preservation of communities and the care of children, the elderly and self-care,” he said.

The executive secretary of the Network of Rural Women of Latin America and the Caribbean, Luz Haro Guanga, has been working for decades to ensure that the voice and needs of rural women are taken into account.

Asked about the reality of caregiving, she acknowledged that there has been progress, especially in the development of systems so that mothers can take their children to kindergarten for a few hours “so that they can go free to work in the fields.”

According to official figures, 58 million women live in rural Latin America and only 12% own land; the majority say they “do not work” because they do not have paid employment, according to the study.

Life-changing breakthroughs

The situation reflected in the report and by the participating experts is difficult, but there are glimmers of optimism and hope for the future.

This can be seen in the energy that Deylin Rojas, Bianka Bolaño and Mariam García are giving off when they present their prototypes with which they will compete in Turkey in December, with the firm objective of being the best proposal in the world in the competition for agricultural technological developments.

They are not yet 18 years old and they are already explaining with crystal clarity to a group of specialist journalists how they have designed and created an automatic atmospheric irrigation system, just as their other colleagues have done with the breeding of flies to promote the decomposition of waste.

If they continue down the path of agricultural engineering, they will share their careers with the more than 70 Costa Rican professionals who have participated in the NASA Harvest program.

They are joined by more than 800 rural women who “take flight” with drones in the “Girls to Fly” training, which is also successfully taught by IICA.

Women, mothers and agricultural professionals – present and future – in Latin America who will have to face the challenge of reconciliation and developing their careers linked to productive systems that need them while society demands them for invisible but important care.