Unpaid care work is preventing women from progressing in the labour force – Akbar

Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation Rosy Akbar says unpaid care work is one of the main barriers preventing women from getting into or remaining and progressing in the labour force.

While speaking at the granting of a $1.5 million FDB loan to South Pacific Business Development for lending to small women business owners, Akbar says research has shown that women spend four times more of the time in Asia and the Pacific in unpaid care work than men.

She adds the pandemic has impacted this even more.

Akbar says we cannot move forward and leave half the population which is made up women behind.