ARGENTINA: Now, Housework Pays

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 26 2005 (IPS) - They cook, clean, wash, iron, and look after the children, the elderly and the sick, without pay. They are neither robots nor angels, but homemakers, who keep on working after the age of retirement. But at least now in Argentina they will have access to a pension.

“It’s great news. For 20 years we have been fighting for recognition that what women do at home is work which is basically about caring for others,” said Chavela Zanutigh, the president of the Sindicato de Amas de Casa (Homemakers’ Union) of the eastern province of Santa Fe.

Nevertheless, Zanutigh prefers to err on the side of caution. “The decree hasn’t fully entered into effect yet, and when it does, we want it to state clearly that if we never contributed to the pension system it wasn’t out of laziness, but because we never received an income for our daily work,” she told IPS.

Under the presidential decree that came out in mid-December as a supplement to a law passed in 2004, self-employed workers, including homemakers, are eligible for the minimum pension when they reach retirement age, even if they have not contributed to the system for at least 30 years, as was previously required.

Many workers reach the age of retirement – 60 for women and 65 for men – still owing years of contributions.

Now, on reaching retirement age, the beneficiaries will receive their pension and the contributions owing will be paid for by monthly deductions from the pension.

The minimum pension in Argentina is 390 pesos (about 130 dollars) per month, and the maximum deduction for these newly pensionable retirees will be 20 percent of the monthly payment. For many women over 60 who remain in charge of domestic duties, the decree has brought great hope and a sense of expectation.

“Just imagine, I’m 68 and not only do I carry on doing all my own housework, but I also look after my grandchildren so that my daughter can go out to work, cook for them and help her with the cleaning as well,” Isabel Álvarez, a candidate for the new pension, told IPS.

But the details have not yet been announced. IPS was told by officials at the National Social Security Administration that no official information is available yet on the pension benefits for housewives who have never paid into the system.

“A lot of people still claim that women who work at home don’t really do anything,” which is why they are paid nothing for their work and are denied the right to a pension, said Zanutigh “It’s said that it’s work done for love, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be remunerated,” she argued.

“It’s often said, also, that a woman paid into the system for only a short time because ‘she worked until she had children,’ as though after she had them she didn’t work any more, while in fact she carried on working, perhaps even more than before, but in her own home,” she added.

The union Zanutigh leads is not just for women who work exclusively in the home. Members include professionals and employees of all kinds. But nearly all of them share the “double burden” of getting home and doing all the cleaning, washing, and supervising of the children’s homework.

To these women, domestic labour is part of their identity, and they reject the viewpoint of organisations who oppose stigmatising women in this role. “Women who are against this pension plan are feminists from the 1970s who solve their housework problem by employing a domestic worker,” she affirmed.

According to information from their own organisations, in this South American country of 37 million people, there are approximately 750,000 domestic employees who work in upper and middle class homes. In 2003, the National Institute for Statistics and Censuses reported that they account for nearly 15 percent of total female employment.

Zanutigh believes that if work in the home is recognised with remuneration and a pension, this will tend to raise the self-esteem of many women and will open up new horizons for them, such as the chance to study or take up other interests.

How can it be proven that a woman works in the home? The union believes that the pension payment should be universal, since even women who work outside of the home are responsible for domestic chores. “It should be up to the State to demonstrate that a woman does not work in the home, and not the other way around,” Zanutigh argued.

She added that the pension benefit should be awarded to those who look after the house, which includes cleaning but also the care of children, the elderly and the sick. “These are all jobs that are paid for in a capitalist society,” she argued.

“And if these jobs are done by a man, let him receive the benefit,” she said. But the statistics show that in Argentina housework falls overwhelmingly to women, especially in the poorer strata of society, which make up nearly 40 percent of all households.

According to a survey carried out in 2003 by the Centre for Population Studies, the six percent of men who participated the most in housework carried out 30-50 percent of all domestic chores, while participating more in childcare than in cleaning.

“This low level of participation does not vary much between households belonging to different social sectors, nor between those in which the women work outside of the home,” the report stated.

That is why the women in the Homemakers’ Union argue that domestic work should be made visible by means of remuneration. “But if a universal income isn’t possible, then at least there should be better access to housing, land, or credit for women who maintain families without support from anyone,” said Zanutigh.