Empowerment and Skills Development for Youth: Balancing Care Work in Tanzania

Background and objective

At Women and Social Protection (WSP) Tanzania, we are committed to fostering shared responsibility for unpaid care work by equally engaging and encouraging men, women, boys, and girls. Recognizing deeply rooted societal cultural norms and limited economic opportunities for women, including their lack of access to productive assets, contribute to an unfair share of unpaid care work relative to income generation opportunity inequalities. That’s why our gender-responsive programs take a bold approach, using male engagement and youth both girls and boys as key entry points to encourage new attitudes about sharing household responsibilities to achieve equality and equity within the beneficiaries and community we intervene.

Our innovative projects directly tackle this imbalance, driving norm change through male engagement to achieve reducing, redistributing and representation of unpaid care work. This initial focus on these “3Rs” sets the stage for policy uptake and opportunity to scale. We also strive on recognition of care economy through high-level policy advocacy to encourage systemic change and policy influence. This comprehensive strategy is all about fostering inclusive gender equality and economic growth for women and youth, directly aligning with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5 and 8. By empowering youth with the skills and mindset for a more equitable distribution of care, WSP is focused to build a more just, prosperous and impactful interventions of social protection programs in Tanzania with intersectional approach.

Facts:

According to the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics (2022)[1], women spend an average of 4.6 hours daily on unpaid care work, while men spend just 1.2 hours? This stark disparity underscores the urgent need for change. Similarly, the 2024 Unpaid Care Work (UCW) Baseline Study (2024)[2], in which WSP Tanzania implements flagship intervention in two bundled form; i) norm change (Male Engagement by learning and contextualize the Rwanda’s Bandebereho Model to Tanzania contexts) and, ii) entrepreneurship Training adopting the Rural Economic Empowerment (TREE). The UCW Baseline (2024) finding highlights significant gender disparities in household responsibilities and decision-making, predominantly affecting women and girls. The study reveals that women are primarily responsible for 63.4% of environmental maintenance and 61.8% of water fetching, while men predominantly handle organizing household responsibilities (70.1%), ensuring household needs are met (46.2%), and managing family income (52.5%). Specifically, mothers are primarily responsible for fetching water in 39.96% of households, followed by sons (28.16%), daughters (17.39%), and fathers (11.80%). Women spend approximately double the time men do on care roles daily, dedicating about 20% of their time to unpaid care work. Despite this, fathers often retain leadership in household decision-making and financial management. However, the study’s data from some villages indicate that sons play a significant role in water fetching, suggesting potential for shifting social norms toward a more equitable distribution of unpaid care work.

[1] National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) [Tanzania] 2023. Report on Gender Dimensions of Tanzania’s Labour Market, Dodoma, Tanzania: NBS.

[2] ESRF, WSP and REDESO (2024); Baseline Study on Scaling-up Innovations for Reducing and Redistributing Women and Girls Unpaid Care Work In Rural Tanzania: Case of Kishapu District, Shinyanga Region.