Good afternoon, everyone.
The Association féminine d'éducation et d'action sociale, or Afeas, was established in 1966, and its mission is to promote and advocate women's interests and gender equality.
The recognition and valuing of invisible work are central issues in achieving equality between men and women. They have been at the very heart of our association's demands since it was founded, when we addressed the invisible work issue head on by attacking flagrant injustice.
In 1968, Afeas submitted a brief to the Bird commission denouncing the invisible work done by women as a factor of dependence and poverty. Since 1974, Afeas has sought legal and financial status for women who work in family businesses and those of their husbands. These women perform work for family businesses and as mothers and homemakers without being recognized or receiving a salary. In 1980, Jacques Parizeau, then Quebec's finance minister, granted “spouses” the same rights as those of all other employees.
For more than 50 years now, Afeas has adopted numerous recommendations for the recognition of legal status for “homemakers” and recognition of this still invisible work and has submitted those recommendations to the governments of Canada and Quebec and to delegations to international conferences on the status of women.
Despite some progress made in 2015, women farmers in Quebec perform $108 million worth of unpaid work every year. Unpaid work is considered “invisible” work because it doesn't appear in the national accounts and is thus not considered part of the labour market economy in the same way as consumer spending and business, commercial and institutional transactions.
The unpaid, or “invisible,” work we are discussing today is directly linked to the social roles that have been assigned to women in all patriarchal societies and that fall within the private sphere. We therefore define invisible work as unpaid or underpaid work, particularly work performed within the family by mothers, fathers and other family members, and includes domestic tasks, care provided to individuals, planning work that is considered a mental burden; work performed by caregivers for family members who are sick, aged or losing their independence or who have special needs; work done within a family business or a spouse's business; volunteer work for various organizations or public, private or community institutions providing essential services to the public; and work mostly performed by women as part of an unpaid practical training course.
On the first Tuesday in April for the past 21 years now, Afeas has drawn attention to the same issue: invisible work by informal caregivers and invisible work by homemakers who, in many instances, are also in the labour force. Nor should we forget volunteer work, which is of inestimable value to society yet is neither recognized nor recorded in public accounts.
We at Afeas feel it is essential that we continue seeking political, social and economic recognition for invisible work.
Thank you for listening.