ARTICLE 41.2 of the Constitution says ‘the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved’.
It adds that ‘the State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home’.
This is the only official recognition of the inestimable value that women hold in their central role as homemaker in Irish households, almost a century after these words were written into the Constitution in 1937.
Now Irish citizens have a chance to change the Constitution to a more gender-neutral, watered-down wording. A proposed politically correct amendment reads: ‘The State recognises that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reasons of the bonds that exist among them, gives to Society a support, with which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision.’
As the word ‘strive’ is no improvement on ‘endeavour’ in terms of the State’s obligation to provide economic support, the only question is whether ‘woman’ or ‘mother’ should be replaced by the entirely gender-neutral ‘members of a family by reasons of the bonds that exist between them’.
In Census 2022, over a quarter of a million (272,318) people in Ireland recorded their principal economic status as ‘looking after the home or family’ and 90% of these were women.
Research from live insurance and pension provider Royal London Ireland last December calculated the cost to employ someone to do the work performed by a stay-at-home parent at around €54,590. The annual ‘Stay-at-Home Parent Survey’ reveals more than 90% of people underestimate the monetary value of a stay-at-home parent, with only 8% valuing the job at over €50,000.
As part of the research, Royal London Ireland examined the typical ‘everyday’ duties carried out by stay-at-home parents and researched the cost of employing someone to do those jobs using living wage data.
Even more undervalued is the inestimable non-economic benefits the family and wider community of stay-at-home parents accrue.
While article 41.2 has been widely condemned as sexist by specifically referring to the role women play in the home, the evidence shows clearly that almost all full-time carers as well as the overwhelming majority of paid carers in Ireland are in fact, women.
A new report from ActionAid Ireland and the National Women’s Council identifies that 98% of full-time carers in Ireland are women and women do twice as much unpaid care and housework as men.
Karol Balfe, chief executive of ActionAid Ireland, said: “The large majority of care work that women carry out globally is not recognised as having any economic value as it remains largely hidden, invisible and unmeasured. In practical terms, this leads to economic inequality and poverty for many women, a wide gender pay gap and an even wider pension gap for women in older age.”
This implies an almost total lack of recognition of the key role that (predominantly) women play in the home in terms of caring for their families and wider community. But this comes at a cost in terms of money that could be brought into the home from participating in the capitalist economy, or lack of long term benefits because they chose to act as homemakers rather than a paid cogs in the economic machine.
Domestic duties too are consistently undervalued. Scott Burns in ‘Home, Inc.’ (1975), concluded the total value of goods and services produced in households (but neither sold nor compensated with wages) was about one third the value of the entire market economy.
In ‘Thoughts while cleaning the Living Room’ in Spring (1989) Donella Meadows wrote: “Families are work and most of the work gets done by women - 20 years ago, only 10% of the women in the industrialised countries worked full time. Now over 50% do. But the average amount of time men spend on housework has not increased.
“I gradually learned that an ongoing responsibility for a house or a child is a constant opportunity to practice fine human virtues - selflessness, patience, practicality, orderliness, intuition, love - womanly qualities not because of genetics but because of the way many women, and some men spend their lives.
“Why does anyone ever question the value of ‘women’s work’? Why don’t we honour it and the people who do it? I mean really honour it with decent wages and personal respect?
“People who clean up or care for people - homemakers, nurses, attendants at day care centres or retirement homes, social workers, maids, launderers are at the bottom of the pay ladder and socially invisible. Most are women or minorities. Above them are people who care for machines; still higher people who care for flows of paper; highest of all people who care for money. Where did we get that set of priorities?”
What is missing from the debate on valuing the work of women in the home is the recognition of the value of facilitating women and their partners to enjoy a stable, happy family life, rather than pushing both partners out to work to feed the capitalist machine. Nothing could be more important. We can see that clearly when we look at the lives of children today in a modern wealthy society.
Yet despite all that wealth and opportunity, mental illness is soaring, children are being bussed from school to after-school to extra-curricular activities with little opportunity for independence or spontaneous physical activity.
Diets are predominantly ultra-processed especially in low-income families where parents have neither the time nor means to cook. Who has the time to listen to their children’s needs?
Economic and social factors pile on the pressure for women to work outside the home, whether they want to or not.
When I was a child, a single income was generally enough to buy a house, now any family without a high double income doesn’t have a hope. This scenario suggests caring for children is something we can do as an afterthought at the end of a long day and for two hours before the sun rises.
In terms of women in the workplace, the focus is always on the availability of affordable childcare - never on maximising the opportunity for women to move out of the workplace and take time to enjoy the care of their children and focus on their needs.
Recognising women’s role as carers is almost absent in society.
That is why I will vote to keep this tiny recognition of their inestimable value where it belongs.
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