The date of March 23 may go unnoticed by most of society, but since 2018, the Government established it as the National Conciliation Day personal, family and work life and the Stewardship in the assumption of Family Responsibilities. The objective was to strengthen the reconciliation strategy to contribute to the achievement of the real and effective equality between women and men. There is a long way to go and there are people who are made invisible when we talk about reconciliation.
Today, we know that the greater unpaid workload that women assume -domestic and care tasks- generates costs in our economic autonomy, in our health, in decision-making, in the enjoyment of our leisure time and in the full exercise of our citizenship rights. However, it is rarely highlighted that this is something that runs through our entire life course, generating gender inequities in the labor/economic, family and personal spheres, which do not disappear in middle age and old agebut they are maintained, and even worsen.
There is a lack of research that goes into this reality in depth, but the data that we have is compelling and shows that older women are a key piece in that reconciliation equation. This is shown in the Research Project “Women in the labor market”, directed by Maria Luisa MoleroProfessor at the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid (2018-2022), https://sermujerytrabajo.es/ in which UNATE and the PEM Foundation have participated and had the opportunity to address the contribution of older women as primary agents of reconciliation and support the reproductive work of their homes and their extended families.
On the one hand, still in the homes of the senior couples The use of time continues to respond to traditional gender roles, which means that older women assume the greatest burden of domestic work and care in their homes, which conditions the availability of their time for themselves. On the other hand, at least up to the age of 80, continue to provide more care and family support than they receiveespecially in caring for grandchildren and people with some degree of dependency.
This reality allows us to question the ageist bias showing older women only as recipients of care due to their longer life expectancy. In fact, it forces us to value its contribution to socioeconomic development and family well-beingboth from their homes and from their extended families by becoming a key piece that facilitates conciliation of the working life of sons and, especially, of daughters. In the case of men, their contribution to this provision of care is concentrated between the ages of 30 and 50, when they dedicate themselves mainly to caring for their children. From the age of 65, men do not contribute to reproductive work in an equivalent way to what women of their same generations do.
That is why we claim this contribution from the older women holding the world of care becoming the invisible welfare system that not even public policies recognize as true agents for the promotion of equality and reconciliation as their roles have been naturalized and they are not in their focus of action. We also claim that your needs are taken into account, since this dedication translates into less time available for carrying out leisure activities and for their personal autonomy, which has negative consequences on their quality of life. A vicious circle in which it is observed how the performance of these tasks, and continue to be “beings-for-others”ends up taking its toll on the health of older women when they should be focused on a
aging with meaning and value for themselves.
It is time for equality policies to incorporate older women into their agenda and for policies for the elderly to incorporate a feminist perspective, its delay shows the ageism and machismo that continues to permeate our society and our public institutions. In fact, on this March 23, we dare to affirm that without making visible the contribution older women makeconciliation is a chimera or a discourse devoid of reality.