Unpaid Care Work in Cambodia: Challenging Gender Norms for Women’s Empowerment

“Cook, clean, wash dishes and clothes, prepare everyone's meal, look after the house” are all of these supposed to be only women’s responsibilities?

The Unseen Burden: Unpaid Care Work in Cambodia 

Unpaid care work is a crucial but time-consuming responsibility, especially in Cambodia, where it is traditionally seen as a woman's duty to ensure their family's well-being. Despite its vital role in society, this duty is undervalued and unrecognized compared to the paid labor force. In Cambodia, women bear a disproportionate burden of unpaid care work, limiting their opportunity to balance domestic work with paid employment. To advance gender equality and women’s empowerment, we must challenge these harmful gendered norms that restrict women's access to paid work and further dismantle the belief that unpaid care work is solely women’s responsibility to amplify their voices for change. 

What is Unpaid Care Work?

Unpaid care work refers to caregiving tasks within a household without financial compensation. This includes both direct care, such as looking after children, the elderly or ill family members, and indirect care, such as cooking, cleaning, washing, shopping, and managing household chores (UNDP, 2020). Similarly, UN Women Asia and the Pacific (2016) defines unpaid care work as labor carried out within the home by family members to ensure the maintenance of the household and the well-being of family members without receiving any payment. 

Article 36 of the Cambodian Constitution states that “The work by housewives in the home shall have the same value as what they can receive when working outside the home”. Despite this legal recognition, unpaid care work still lacks social recognition and is disproportionately performed by women according to the International Labour Organization (2009). 

The significant disparity can be seen when in various research findings, including one from Oxfam where it showed that women spend an average of 188 minutes per day on unpaid care work compared to only 18 minutes for men. Furthermore, the report of the United Nations on Gender Equality Deep-Dive for Cambodia, stated that women performed unpaid care work 10 times more than men, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, a rapid assessment showed that 40% of surveyed participants reported an increase in caregiving responsibilities for other family members, while 61% of surveyed women took on more housework.

Why Is Addressing Unpaid Care Work Important For Women?

Addressing unpaid care work is crucial to challenge harmful gender norms that restrict women’s autonomy,  economic participation and opportunities to achieve their full potential. Chbab Srey (Women Code of Conduct) codifies women's status in the home and reinforces the expectations that women should manage household duties, while men engage in paid work to provide for the family. These harmful gendered norms hinder women’s freedom to participate in the paid workforce and receive economic independence and financial opportunities. (IFC, 2019).

Ensuring an equal distribution of unpaid care work plays a key role in empowering women to have sufficient time and freedom to choose their professional careers. Although Article 36 of the Constitution of Cambodia guarantees equal employment rights (“Khmer citizens of either sex shall enjoy the right to choose any employment according to their ability and to the needs of the society), in reality, Cambodian women's economic independence and opportunities are restricted under Chbab Srey and unpaid care work further prevents women business owners from accessing markets, networking and building business partnerships due to a lack of time (IFC, 2019).  Without intervention, the burden of unpaid care work will continue to be a major barrier to women’s education, career advancement and financial autonomy. 

“Unpaid care work is the big barrier for women and girls to obtain education and economic priorities, which means it’s hindering them from working outside. Therefore, accepting the value of unpaid care work is the starting point to find solutions to break those barriers to make women receive equal opportunities like others,” Phean Sophoan, National Director of Oxfam

Unpaid care work tends to overwhelm women physically and psychologically– adding significant stress on their mental health due to their added mental load of constantly remembering, checking, scheduling and assigning housework. According to Klahaan Report on Housework: Whose Work in 2022, 41.2% of survey participants somewhat agree with the statement that “women are seen as primarily responsible for organising the “life admin” tasks in the home (booking children’s appointments, buying detergent, making shopping lists, remembering parents’ birthdays, organising family travel).” This has left a significant burden for women to perform housework unconditionally in fear of facing family criticism and societal shame if they are not carried out– highlighting the urgent need for equal distribution to ensure women’s mental well-being and the right to rest. 

“[...] The main source of mental loads comes from constantly thinking. If there is a problem, we, as women, take responsibility, and therefore we are stressed and worried a lot” Young Woman, 2022 Klahaan FPAR Report on Housework: Whose Work?

Eliminating the Double Burden on Women 

Here is what we can do to break the double burden of unpaid care work on women: 

• Expand Access to Affordable Childcare: invest and implement policies and programs that offer good-quality public child care to enable mothers to return to work after childbirth.

• Provide Eldercare Support: foster care services for the elderly so women can pursue employment without sacrificing family responsibilities.

• Strengthen Care Infrastructure: prioritises investments in education, childcare and healthcare over large infrastructure projects, to boost women’s employment and economic growth. 

• Improve Policies in the Workplace: offer benefits in the workplace including flexible work and paid parental leave (for both parents) to ensure that childcare responsibility is being shared with fathers and employers are not hesitant to hire women workforce through gender-equal hiring practices. 

• Challenge Gender Norms: normalising that household chores are for everyone- encouraging men to actively participate in domestic work.  

• The Right to Rest: ensure that women can prioritise their mental health and wellbeing and have the right to take rest from performing daily housework without being shamed or judged for it. 

House Work Has No Gender, It Is A Shared Responsibility!

About the author: Chhem Seakmey is Campaign & Research Intern at Klahaan and is completing her undergraduate IR degree at IISPP.