Uses of Time

» The GENERA project addresses gender equality in time use.
» The Advisory Council is made up of entities and key institutions in the field of time use

On October 22, 2024, the second meeting of the Advisory Council of the GENERA project “Gender equality in the uses of time: changes, resistances and continuities” was held. The Area of Feminisms and LGBTI of the Barcelona City Council forms part, together with different experts and key institutions in matters of time use and gender equality, such as the General Directorate of Care, Organization of Time and Equity at Work by the Equality and Femism Area of the Catalan Government, the Area of ​​Social Sustainability, Cycle of Life and Community of the Barcelona Provincial Council, ​​the Area of ​​Organizational Development of Barcelona Activa or the Time Use Initiative.

This second meeting of the Advisory Council’s objective was to present the preliminary results of the second and third phases of the GENERA project, an ambitious project that started in 2022 and will last until 2025. The project aims to analyze the changes, resistances, and continuities in time use dedicated to domestic and care work, paying attention to the heterogeneity of trends and the nature of transformations.

In the first part of the session, preliminary results were presented based on some questions from the fieldwork, such as the distribution of domestic tasks in retired couples, where a traditional distribution of those is still taking place. The reduction in time dedicated to these domestic tasks was also addressed, a phenomenon attributed to a generational change in the perception of domestic work that implies that women do less, while men do not take on more, and that is also influenced by the variation in cleaning standards.

The second part was dedicated to the contributions of the Advisory Council, both in relation to the analysis of the results and future lines of work.

In this sense, some questions were raised about the existence of territorial differences, between the rural and urban context, the profile of the people who are responsible for carrying out the domestic tasks in a remunerated way, who are usually migrant and precarious women, the differences between social classes and also those regarding gender, which show, in this last case, a greater involvement of men in the tasks of care but only in what refers to the care of small children.

Finally, the next steps were debated, focused on how to link the results of the GENERA project with the formulation, design and implementation of public policies which would involve a first step of presenting the project, through the different institutions, if appropriate.

At the next meeting of the Advisory Board, a final presentation of the project will be made, open to a wider public.