Monetary Valuation of the Unpaid Care Works and Experiences of Some Women in the Upper East Region of Ghana

Abstract

Most women in Ghana are engaged in many unpaid jobs which are highly undermined in monetary terms. This paper aims to study and investigate the valuation of women unpaid care works in the country, with a specific look into women in some selected communities in the Nabdam district of the Upper East region of Ghana. The study seeks to provide a monetary valuation of the unpaid care works of the women, to find out the types of unpaid care works the women are engaged in, to determine the relationship between a woman’s level of education and the average time she spends doing unpaid care work and to solicit the views of women, men and children on ways the woman’s life could be empowered economically. Personal encounters with the women in the Nabdam district and the realization of most challenges women in that part of the country faces is the researcher’s motivation for undertaking this study. A statistical tool, multiple regression model, as well as descriptive statistics was used to analyze and valuate unpaid care work among the selected women. The questions that the researcher sought to answer were gathered through the administration of questionnaires. One sample t-test was used to ascertain whether the average monetary value from the sample was the population parameter or not so as to adopt it as the true valuation of their care works or reject it. The responses received showed that, the daily minimum expected wage for a woman in the area was 1USD Also, the burden of care work rest largely on the shoulders of women and completing higher education reduces the number of hours women spend doing unpaid care work.