A HUGE chunk of women’s working hours each week are unpaid and ignored by official statistics measuring economic activity, leaving them short-changed and pushed deeper into poverty, according to Oxfam.

In a report released today the charity said not taking account of unpaid care for a child or sick adults, or domestic work such as cooking and cleaning — much of which is carried out by women — means these activities are invisible in the formal economy and not valued properly.

It has called to move beyond gross domestic product (GDP), calling the measurement of growth “anti-feminist and colonial because it sustains a framework of value creation and productivity that only counts what can be monetised.”