The Floating Coconut Poster: A Tool to Value Women’s Work
The Floating Coconut is a resource for creating awareness of the range of activities that create economic and social value. It was designed primarily for use by Civil Society Organisations but can be used in a variety of contexts.
Across the world, women’s work is often invisible, under-recognised and undervalued. Women work more hours overall than men and significantly more of their work is unpaid. While unpaid work contributes in important ways to sustaining people’s lives and well-being, many standard economic measures focus on activity in the formal sector.
An increased understanding of women’s work can greatly strengthen women’s collective voice, change perceptions and support advocacy with policy makers for more inclusive policies.
The International Women’s Development Agency, the University of Western Sydney and Macquarie University, in partnership with Fiji National University, Union Aid Abroad APHEDA (Solomon Islands), Live & Learn Environmental Education (Solomon Islands) and Women’s Action for Change (Fiji), with funding from an Australian Development Research Award, undertook research to track the impacts of economic change in Melanesian communities. As part of this work, the Floating Coconut poster was developed.
The Floating Coconut is a resource for creating awareness of the range of activities that create economic and social value. It was designed primarily for use by Civil Society Organisations but can be used in a variety of contexts.
The Floating Coconut conceives the economy in three parts: formal, informal and non-cash economies. These parts are mapped onto a graphic of a Floating Coconut and participants map their activities onto the graphic, revealing different patterns of work and time use.
The Floating Coconut is founded in feminist economics and highlights the need to reduce and redistribute unpaid work burdens to promote gender equality.
“We can see the work the women are doing… we can see that all work that has been done … is important, everyone is valuable in society”
– Sam, Live & Learn Vanuatu
Recognising, reducing and redistributing unpaid work is critical to enabling women to benefit from cash based economic opportunities. By redefining ‘work’ and the ‘economy’ the Floating Coconut tool opens up discussions on workload, economic access and opportunity, and risks of violence.
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