Women contribute around $3 trillion to global healthcare in the form of work, a contribution that adds up to nearly 5% of the global gross domestic product, according to a new report. But nearly half of this is unpaid and unrecognized, which means that it is undervalued.
The report is from the Lancet Commissions and was published in the medical journal The Lancet. It looked at the inter-relationships between women and health and underlined that women are both providers and recipients of healthcare.
The report analyzed data from 32 countries, including 52% of the world's population. It estimated that the financial value of women's paid contribution to the health system in 2010 was 2.47% of the global gross domestic product and 2.35% of GDP for unpaid work, which is largely caring at home for family members. This is because most of the people who provide healthcare are women. This healthcare at home is acknowledged and compensated for in a handful of countries. The $3 trillion that this home care contributes to healthcare is more than the total annual expenditure of the United States and United Kingdom.
"But the health systems to which they contribute so much are often completely unresponsive to their needs - despite the fact that they rely heavily on their paid and unpaid contributions," said Professor Ana Langer, head of the Women and Health Initiative at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston and a co-leader of the commission. "It's time to acknowledge women's comprehensive health needs throughout their lives, and their productive contributions to healthcare and society as a whole, as well as their similarly important roles as mothers and homemakers."
"In their dual roles as users of health-care systems and providers of health care, women are affected by gender discrimination, a disproportional burden of poverty, and many dimensions of inequality, all of which hinder their ability to contribute to sustainable development," the report concluded.
