“Although women were able to access the world of work, it has not been on an equal footing. From the bottom we have got into a discriminatory market: labor segregation, low wages… And still the care work is behind us. We have a double or triple performance.” This is Zaloa Ibeas, head of the LAB women's field. And the data published by both the unions and the statistical institutes is right: women earn 25% less per hour of work in the Basque Country and have less stable working conditions than men. In addition, domestic work and care remain their task: they dedicate four hours a day to this work, while men dedicate about two hours a day.

It's very difficult to do a global analysis of the world of work. The lack of institutions for the entire Basque country complicates data collection by country. Each institution also takes into account certain measurement instruments in the search for information. It's often impossible to make a general picture.

In any case, in the next paragraphs, we want to draw a broad perspective from the research of the unions ELA and LAB, Eustat, the Navarro Institute of Statistics and Gaindegi.
Unfortunately, historically feminized jobs are not counted and are not included in the statistics: for example, cleaning houses charged in black, care or prostitution. At work, yes, but how?

In the Basque Country, the activity rate is 69.9%, i.e. the population employed or in search of employment. Looking exclusively at women, it amounts to 66.2%. There does not, therefore, appear to be any great differences. Not even in the unemployment rate: 15.9% are generalist and 16.6% are women. But the data only gathers the percentage, not the quality. The key is not how many women work, but where and how.

As for the documents published by Emakunde, the sexual distribution of work remains in force. For example, nine out of ten Basques working in construction are men, and eight out of ten working in industry. As for the third sector, six out of ten are women. According to Gaindegia's reading, taking into account the seven territories of the country, almost 60 per cent of women's contracts have been made in the service sector. And that is precisely what offers a worse quality of employment. The trades are linked to the classic gender roles.

The sociologist and gender expert Blanca Fernández Viguera has described it as a consequence of the socialization process: “Women from a young age have been taught to do housework and care. When we give dolls, toy cooks… As we grow up, we have assumed that these tasks are there and they belong to us. But that cannot be the case. We must do our homework together. Work must be distributed: domestic and market”.

Ibeas de LAB joins Fernández's opinion. In March of this year, the union published its report Consequences of the crisis and wage devaluation. It critically analyzes reality. According to the trade unionist, women's access to the labour market has not been adapted to other social changes: “There are no real compatibility measures. High-level posts are still reserved for men, in most cases. Women have to continue care because there are no means, among others, public services”.

And why do men also not have problems reconciling care work with employment? Ibeas speaks without shaving: “Because the division of labor, in its comprehensive view, is not yet a reality, because women continue to carry much of the weight.”

The conception of work is also there. Why are there more important works than others? Why? Fernandez answers with another question: “Why is a nurse less important than a doctor?” And the same doubt I had left in the air has responded. “Because when a trade takes the face of a woman it loses value.”

Few hours and more periodicity

“Although women have entered the labour market, their activity is considered ‘aid’.” This is what Fernández believes. Therefore, the neoliberal system has considered that the types of contracts and the number of hours of work can be compatible with work in the public and private spheres.

The figures give shape to the sociologist's assumption. 28.8% of women in need have part-time work in Hego Euskal Herria, and only 5% of men have part-time work. The Navarro Institute of Statistics has offered a simpler piece of information: for every man who takes a part-time job, 3.80 women do. Thus, taking into account the Basque Country as a whole, 80.9% of the reduced contracts are occupied by women.

The same goes for the temporality rate. It is more common for women to act at intervals. For example, in the CAV, the temporality rate of women stands at 24.4% and that of men at 6.9 points. “We have been sold part-time as an ideal contract, because we have time to do our homework. Now we're not told they're housewives, no. Now we have to have a job, but always without forgetting the house,” says Fernández.

The burden on children is also borne by women to a greater extent. The CAV data published by Emakunde in 2012 are the most updated. In CAPV, the general activity rate increases as children are born, but also the difference between women and men increases proportionally in the case of family members. The overall activity rate is 56.2% -49.5% in women and 63.2% in men. But the factor of the descendants molds it considerably.

The rate of the population without children is 46.9%: that of women in 40.4% and that of men in 53.4%, with a difference of 13 points. The rate of women with a child stands at 55% and that of men at 70%, with a difference of 15 points. And for those who have two children, 69.8% of women and 87.6% of men, with 17 points of difference. This is another link in the lack of distribution of reproductive work.

For people without a contract, the difference is also important: 86.6% of the respondents are women, 13.4% are men.

Face to face with glass ceiling

The glass ceiling is a structural limit that doesn't let it get to the top. “On the one hand, economic power was not trusted by women. In general, men care about other men. On the other hand, it also has a subjective level, women do not fight for these positions”. This is where Fernández intuits the difficulty of not assuming or not seeking high positions.

Along the same lines, Saioa Iraola, member of Bilgune Feminista. Beyond the weight of reproductive work, he has recalled other factors: “The labor world, due to the structuring of the years, is usually a very patriarchal field and many women do not feel the strength, the will, the will to enter this strange environment. On the other hand, the lack of self-esteem is the cause of this. Women, despite our life experience and years of undervaluation, have lower self-esteem. In addition, this must be demonstrated. Women are required a great deal in public space.”

As an example, we have the analysis carried out by Eustat in the CAPV. The latest available data are for 2012. 32.2% of company managers were women. 30.4% of central command posts. While it is true that there is a higher percentage presence compared to the data for the year 2000 – then women represented 30.6 per cent of senior officials and 15.6 per cent of central posts – the percentage equality remains far away. And as you know, even if a similar figure was achieved in percentage terms, not everything would be done.

The crisis has a female face

The dismantling of the welfare state has done the greatest damage to the groups that were previously most affected. According to information published by LAB, women's has been one of the most repressed to date.

Fernandez pointed out that cuts in the reduction of public services have been made in view of the fact that it is women who work in education and health, especially those who are unemployed. According to the LAB reading of March 8, in the last two years 4,000 people have been dismissed from public services and the majority are women.

Furthermore, cutting public services is a bilateral currency. In fact, custody takes her back home: “If the elderly do not enter the residences, if the sick are quickly thrown into the hospitals… One of the effects of the crisis is to increase the care work and re-adapt to the women. It is they who, in most cases, mitigate the negative effects that occur in families. Care for dependents or children, for example. In addition, the scarcity of resources leads us to do more at home. Spending more time cooking, sewing clothes… increase the weight of household chores.”

In the opinion of Fernández, the gap between the working conditions of men and women in the Basque Country, due to the crisis, can increase even more if something is not done to distribute reproductive and productive work. “No one has told how many hours of work women do today at home because of the crisis. And that has to be counted in order to make it visible.”

The world of work is just another face of a patriarchal system. That is why all the experts have insisted on the need to rethink the concept of work and share out responsibilities.