Scaling up innovations for reducing and redistributing women’s and girls’ unpaid care work in rural Tanzania

In rural Tanzania, women take on a disproportionate share of unpaid care work, including walking long distances to collect water. This project is scaling up proven innovations to reduce the time women spend on unpaid care work, challenge restrictive gender norms and support women’s economic empowerment.

Domestic work limits women’s opportunities

Women in Tanzania spend more than three times as much time as men doing unpaid and domestic work. Gender norms, low incomes and lack of public services and infrastructure contribute to this imbalance. Women and girls in rural areas can walk up to 30 kilometres a day carrying 20-litre buckets of water on their heads. Climate change and recurring droughts are increasing the time and physical effort required to fetch water. Domestic tasks limit women’s economic opportunities and can cause girls to miss out on school time.

Toward equitable sharing of responsibilities

Researchers and women’s rights organizations are building 20 new rainwater harvesting systems, which have already proved useful in the Kishapu district. Couples in villages where the project is taking place are invited to participate in the Bandebereho program, which encourages reflecting on behaviours and norms to promote equitable sharing of responsibilities. Women are invited to take part in entrepreneurship and job-skills trainings to support them in pursuing paid work. By studying how women’s time spent on unpaid care work changes through these activities, researchers are helping to inform locally appropriate solutions for redistributing unpaid care work and supporting women’s economic empowerment.