THE ORCHESTRATING HOUSEWIFE

American scientists have calculated how much an ordinary woman could make in a year by occupying herself only with household activities and children. It was quite an impressive figure: a housewife's labour is worth 134,000 dollars, or 106,000 euros per year. At the same time, the scientists point out that many company managers have something to learn from ordinary housewives. For example, a housewife's duties include such specialities as cooking, gardening, computing, nursing, psychology, teaching, laundry, housekeeping, driving, working as a fitter, electrician, manager and so on. What's more, all these duties are performed all week. 

In revealing this the scientists concluded that women work much more than men; first of all, because they work not only at work, but also at home, keeping the house - the figure includes not just hourly rates for representatives of each of the specialities, but also "overtime", because a housewife does not have fixed working hours. Thus she works 91.6 hours per week on average. Her husband works only 45 hours per week. A working woman's weekly hours are even longer. Apart from her basic 44 hours, she also works 49.8 hours at home. Therefore, her virtual pay rise should be $85,800 on average. If the "gross salary" of a housewife is made up of "working hours" and "overtime", the "basic salary" of women working at home is $45,700 per year, while her "overtime" comprises another $88,400.

Everyone should have rights

It is common knowledge that representatives of various professions often complain that their labour is low-paid and, therefore, thankless. Note that everyone who is lucky enough to work and be paid for it complains this way. It may be that the salary cannot cover all the vital necessities, not to mention luxuries such as fashionable clothing, visits to theatres, cinemas, restaurants and resorts. But the salary is what people work for. Who should the home-based household representative, whether man or woman, blame? It is clear that (s)he has only himself to blame. It seems that the work of a housewife can be regarded as the most thankless job at the moment, as she has no wages and no right to a record of service, labour pension, sick leave, taxes or other benefits while forming the accumulative part of her pension. What is more, although housewives work more than the employed members of their family, they are regarded as dependants.

"This is not fair. Society does not regard our labour as useful and necessary. This attitude generates discrimination against people working in the household. As a consequence, the basic economic rights of household workers are being violated or disregarded completely," housewife Nargiz Xanlarova told our R+ correspondent.

Today Xanlarova is one of those who intend to set up a non-government organization to protect the rights of household workers in Azerbaijan, like the trade union to protect the economic rights and interests of household workers which was set up in Moscow in March this year.

At the same time, Xanlarova pointed out that the main direction of the activity of the future NGO will be in achieving social status for household workers and recognition of their labour as socially important.

Nargiz Xanalarova is 36 years old. She had to quit her job at school because she is a mother of two. "I could not even imagine my children being raised by a nanny. I did not have the opportunity to hire a nanny anyway. Although I loved my job very much, I had to leave it. Now I am engaged not just in housekeeping, but also in raising my children. You may say - so what? many people have to do this. But if you think about it more carefully, I am raising my children not just for myself. Yes, I chose this path myself. I hope that in the future my boys will become worthy citizens of their country. In this case, I have a question. Is the upbringing of children a job only for their mother? Perhaps I can hope that the state will take care of me and my children. If I was forced to quit my job in order to raise my children, today I should be paid for working at home. My husband's salary is not enough and my children are not old enough for me to go to work. It may be that securing pay for housewives is a long process. But I hope that we will secure economic rights for future young mothers and future household workers," said Nargiz.

"The only unpaid group in our country is women working at home. They are regarded as dependants. If a woman has two, three or more children, she makes her own contribution to the common cause, and her contribution is probably greater than that of other workers," said housewife Rafiqa Babayeva confidently.

Yes to "home law"

It is noteworthy that the Azerbaijani parliament welcomes the idea of housewives deciding to set up an NGO in order to protect their right to wages. They are sure that the state should pay for the labour of housewives, because being a housewife is a profession.

"If a housewife raises children who are future citizens of Azerbaijan, she should be paid for her labour and is entitled to a record of service and pension," deputy speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament, Bahar Muradova, told R+ in an interview. "I think that both Russian and Azerbaijani representatives of the household have similar problems. These problems concern their social status, the issue of raising their children and their position in the family. I am sure that an Azerbaijani housewife has many more problems and responsibilities than a Russian housewife. Taking account of traditional attitudes, family customs and the burden that an Azerbaijani woman, especially a housewife, has to carry to maintain them, the establishment of an NGO to protect their rights is a very important process. Such organizations could put up for public debate the problems of this section of the citizenry and even make proposals at a legislative level in order to protect the rights of housewives. Moreover, they could initiate specific draft laws," the MP went on.

Bahar Muradova said that the establishment of an organization to protect the economic rights of housewives is important and somewhat belated. "This issue should have been raised a long time ago."

As for wages and other economic rights of housewives, the MP observed that if we compare the volume of work carried our by a woman at home, we can say that it is much harder than the work of public and private sector employees who have a record of service. "Raising children and solving family problems cannot be regarded as the problem of only one family - it is a problem for the state. If a woman has so many family responsibilities, then why should she not have more rights and benefits? I think it logical to examine this issue in the parliament. If household workers, who may also be men, initiate discussions on this issue, government agencies and the country's parliament will have to pay attention. Relevant agencies should start the necessary work and research to this effect."

According to Muradova, the law should contain a provision for the payment of housewives' labour and for a record of service and pension. "Payment for housewives' labour and a calculation of their record of service and pension is a positive incentive for childbirth."

In turn, the Azerbaijani state committee for family, women's and children's affairs said that it has not yet carried out separate surveys on the rights of housewives. "The reason is that gender equality is our main sphere of activity. Yes, women do visit us with certain complaints, but we have not counted how many of them are housewives and how many are employees and housewives at the same time. However, if an NGO is set up in Azerbaijan to protect the economic rights of household workers, then we can only welcome this. We are ready for cooperation," the state committee told R+.

It must be noted that the number of economically inactive people of an employable age (people engaged in housekeeping, students, schoolchildren and other employable but unemployed citizens) ranges from 11 to 15 per cent of the population in Azerbaijan. If we take into account the fact that housewives form a great part of this section of the population, it is not difficult to imagine their role and importance in the further development of society.