Competencias parentales de familias azuayas: un abordaje desde la economía del cuidado

Abstract

In Ecuador, 94% of the parental figures responsible for early childhood care are women. The role of caregiver within the home is not usually valued as a type of productive work, rather care work is stigmatized as a natural role that women must fulfill. From this problematic, the objective of the research is to analyze the gender social relationship that exists in the configuration of parental competencies of families of the Azuay whose children attend programs of Child Development of the MIES, from the approaches of the Economy of Care and Positive Parenting. The study is quantitative in nature, with a descriptive analysis and an inferential application in the second hypothesis; the instrument from which the results were obtained corresponds to the “Escala de Parentalidad Positiva'', while the sample was composed of 480 families from the province of Azuay belonging to quintiles 1 and 2 of poverty that participate in programs of Integral Child Development such as CNH and CDI; the analysis of the information was performed by applying descriptive and inferential statistics. Among the results, it was determined that in Azuay care work is related to cultural patterns determined by the model of sexual division of labor, producing a dichotomy in caring and parenting responsibilities. The burden of responsibility has psychosocial implications for women, limiting their rest time, access to other activities and perpetues gender inequality. The historical allocation of child rearing has resulted in care work being made invisible in the political and economic sphere, despite being a fundamental activity for the life sustainability system.