All over the world, women take care of children, elderly, and disabled members of their families, they keep the household
clean and cook meals. Women spend triple the amount of time on these tasks as men. This domestic and caretaking work
is unpaid, even though it creates a safe environment for all members of the household.

"If this work was estimated based on the minimum hourly wage rates, it would be nine
percent of the global GDP, totalling at USD 11 trillion," stated Laura Addati, International
Labour Organization’s policy specialist.

What kind of issues does the non-recognition of unpaid housework and care work create?
To evaluate the unpaid work properly, first it must be recognized. Domestic, caretaking work, for the most part is not optional
for women. From an early age it emerges in women’s life as a duty and takes up a very large portion of their time.
Unpaid labour can have both short and long-term effects on women. Such work hampers women from pursuing their aspirations
in education, paid employment, leisure and social life.

"The share of unpaid labour activities in rural areas is even higher. This includes supplying water and firewood for the household, often in conditions, where these vital resources are obtained far away from home. Unpaid labour also includes working on agricultural plots and taking care of livestock. Unpaid household and care work are not compensated, recognized or remunerated. The work performed by rural women may require twice as much time as in the city, due to the low level of available social services and infrastructure development. At the same time, women may spend as much as 400% more time than men, performing these activities in rural areas,” Dono Abdurazakova, Senior Gender and Social Protection Adviser at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), stated.

Starting in 2018, FAO has been implementing the Agricultural and Rural Development Project in Georgia, funded by Austrian
Development Cooperation (ADC). This project allowed to support those women, who were affected by the burden of
unpaid labour amid the Covid-19 pandemic the most. The priority was given to the especially vulnerable groups of women -
single parents and mothers with three or more children, women with disabilities, as well as women taking care of the disabled
or sick family members.

The project made it possible to purchase labour-saving agricultural equipment or machinery for the women of Ateni, Plevi, Tvishi and Sori communities to strengthen rural women’s quality of life. Leila Gurguchiani and her husband live in Lechkhumi, Tvishi community.

Leila's husband can only eat specific food due to his health condition. Apart from that, she needs to take care of the family vineyard, rare varieties of grapevine in which, require special maintenance considering the unique climatic conditions of the community.

"I have to make food separately for my husband, all of it must be blended. I bake bread at home and make fruit juices. Household work takes a lot of my time. Thanks to the useful food processing equipment, I can spare a little time for myself now. For example, I had to use a wood oven or to heat up a tone (clay oven) to bake some bread, which was quite difficult in, especially in the summer heat. We also have a vineyard that needs maintenance. We were granted a pesticide sprayer, which greatly simplifies the vineyard work. This equipment allowed us to save our time and energy,” Leila said. Elena Tabatadze is a young mother of six children from Tkotsa village, Khashuri municipality. Five of her children go to school and the sixth is a pre-schooler. Apart from taking care of the children, she has a paid job at a local community school. She also performs agricultural labour at family land plots.

Under the Agricultural and Rural Development Project, her family received a corn thresher, a grinding mill and a milking machine.

"We have already used the corn thresher this year, it simplified our workload and sped up this time-consuming process greatly. We are also expecting two calves in the winter and we think we will expand our production of dairy," Elena said.

Numerous chores occupy rural women’s day, seven days a week, all year long. Elena says having no kindergarten in her village, makes the life of local women even more difficult.

"The main reason why we don’t have a kindergarten is that there is no building for it in the village. However, there is a defunct cinema building here, still in good condition and we think the kindergarten can be set up there. It would make things much easier for rural women,” said Elena.

Apart from the equipment and machinery, it is important to ensure equal living conditions for women, so they can choose a lifestyle acceptable to them. "In Turkey, for example, because of advocacy, daycare centres have been opened for women. These child care services support women, giving rural women some spare time to focus on education, to have more opportunities for economic empowerment," Dono Abdurazakova said.

It is crucial to measure the invisible labour women perform to properly plan the state budget and create policies for women. The approaches and methods for this kind of study already exist: "The unpaid labour is measured with special surveying tools in development research. Various statistics offices use these tools to measure time use in the region. It quite accurately represents the time spent by women and men in rural or urban areas on paid and unpaid work, including care activities," Dono Abdurazakova stated.

The International Day of Rural Women was celebrated on October 15th, this day reminds society on the critical role and contribution of rural women, their challenges, and problems.

This article was prepared under the Agricultural and Rural Development Project in Georgia, implemented by FAO. The project is supported by Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC). The article was prepared as part of ,,See and Redistribute Rural Woman’s Invisible Work’’ awareness-raising campaign of the same project.