Chapter 2: Rural Women’s Issues on Reproductive and Care Work Based on studies, “rural women spend more time than urban women and men in reproductive and household work” (UN Women Watch, 2012). Reproductive and care work refers to activities such as child bearing, rearing, and caring for household members. It includes household work and caring for sick members of the family. “In the Philippines, women provide 84% of the total household time allocated to child care” (ADB and ILO 2013). This significantly contributes to the low participation of women in the labor force. “According to the Philippines Department of Statistics workforce data for January 2017, women constituted the majority of the population not in the labour force -- 69.5% of the total household population aged 15 and over, in other words, 18.9 million women. One of the top reasons reported for this was household family responsibilities, a reason cited by 60.5% females and by only 11.1% males” (Bhoola, n.d.). It should be noted that aside from the care work for their families, many rural women also provide unpaid work in agriculture and other industries where they are expected to perform both social and economic responsibilities. Their social responsibilities highlight the gender-prescribed roles that societies impose on women, i.e., care work is mostly done by women than men. “A study made by the U.P. Department of Sociology showed that only 35% of Filipino husbands help in the household tasks regularly; 61% help under special circumstances; and 4% do not help at all” (Pineda, 1981). It was further said that, “The sex-role differentiation starts from childhood when girls are urged to develop an interest in cooking, sewing, cleaning and other ‘feminine’ preoccupations” (Pineda, 1981). Aside from care work being imposed on women, it is even more burdensome to rural women, who, unlike urban women, are unable to hire domestic workers to care for their families. STAKEHOLDERS’ VIEWS ON REPRODUCTIVE AND CARE WORK Day 2 of the workshop-forum held on February 20-21, 2018 focused on the situation of rural women along the issues of reproductive and care work. Perceptions about care work were drawn from the participants during the said activity. Their views on care work are the following: ● Care work is life and it gives life to their homes and communities. ● It comes from their love for the family. 15