Jalisco will become the first state in Mexico to legally recognize the value of the contribution of unpaid homemakers to society and the economy.
The law recognizes that women who do unpaid domestic work, or care for dependents, in their own homes are acknowledged as generators of wealth and social well-being, and thus entitled to equal protection under the law. These citizens have “the right to be cared for in a dignified manner and to receive the material and symbolic elements that sustain their lives in order to live in society,” the constitutional modification states.
Changes to Article 4 of the Jalisco Constitution approved by the state legislature last October have been ratified by 125 municipal councils and will shortly be enacted after their publication in the Diario Oficial del Estado.
“With this, we are moving firmly toward gender equality, by recognizing within the Constitution something that is essential for the development of society,” said Movimiento Ciudadano legislator Gabriela Cárdenas. “In addition to guaranteeing decent care, the law will provide legal support to cover (a homemaker’s) basic needs.”
“Unpaid care work is often perceived as low value and is invisible in mainstream economics, underpinned by entrenched patriarchal institutions and national accounting systems that fail to factor in women’s total contributions,” noted Soraya Seedat and Marta Rondon in “Women’s wellbeing and the burden of unpaid work,” a study published by the British Medical Journal in 2021. “Unpaid domestic and care work is associated with greater mental health burden and negative effects on quality of life,” they concluded.