Half of Young Brazilian Women Have a Double Workload From Age 18, Study Says

A study by Fiocruz (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation), in partnership with the National Secretariat for Care and Family Policies, reveals that half of young Brazilian women begin facing a double or triple workload from the age of 18, combining at least two activities among paid work, household tasks and studies. The survey uses microdata from IBGE’s 2022 Annual Continuous PNAD.

Laís Wendel Abramo, national secretary for Care and Family Policy, defines care work as daily tasks involving household maintenance and dependent people. "Taking care of and organizing the house, cooking, doing laundry, caring for a baby, caring for an elderly person who can no longer eat alone, bathe alone, move around the house," she says. "It is work that remained invisible for a long time."

Among young people overall, 82.5% perform care activities, a percentage that rises to 90% among women. Black women spend twice as much time on care work as men, whether White or Black, a situation linked to the fact that 33% of young Black women neither work nor study. "One in three women who are not working say they are not looking for a job because they are taking care of the house, children or other relatives," Laís says.

André Sobrinho, coordinator of Fiocruz’s Youth Agenda, says young women are part of a cultural environment that assigns them responsibility for domestic care. From adolescence to adulthood, the average weekly hours dedicated to these tasks increase by 10 hours among women, compared with only three among men. Sobrinho also criticizes the "glamorization of the hustle" that normalizes exhausting workloads among young people, with direct impacts on physical and mental health.

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