Unraveling the Unpaid Work Gender Gap: Insights from Ecuador

Abstract

Ecuadorian women dedicate an average of 38.68 extra weekly hours (5.53 additional hours daily) to unpaid work than men. This study explores the impact of gender, relative income and socio-demographic factors on allocating unpaid work within households. It uses data from the 2007 National Survey on Employment, Unemployment, and Underemployment and the 2012 National Time-Use Survey. The study employs various empirical methods such as Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Censored Regression Models, and the Oaxaca-Blinder Two Fold Decomposition to investigate how relative income is associated with unpaid work allocation. If the gender gap in relative income were eliminated, women's relative income should increase by 30.58%; this change would be associated with a reduction of 3.87 hours in weekly unpaid work (33.18 minutes daily). Notably, only 17.60% of the gap is explained by differences in relative income, underscoring the influence of social norms perpetuating gender biases on the remaining unpaid work disparity.