Story highlights Helene Gayle: We should redefine what counts as a job to reduce gender inequality and fighting poverty

Women's labor - inside or outside the home - sustain families, especially in developing countries

Helene Gayle is president and CEO of CARE USA, an international humanitarian organization. She spent 20 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is now on the board of New America. This is the latest in a series, "Big Ideas for a New America," in which the think tank New America spotlights experts' solutions to the nation's greatest challenges. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) The adage -- "a woman's work is never done" -- exists for a reason. Whether it's inside or outside the home, women's labor sustains families. How we assess women's work has long been a contested issue. In the developing world, it's especially important.

If we redefine what labor means for women in developing countries, we can be better at reducing gender inequality and fighting poverty.

For example, if you're a woman living with a family in northwest Bangladesh, there's a good chance that you know what it feels like not to have enough or the right kind of food when you need it. Experts call this "chronic food insecurity."

Helene Gayle

But for Chameli Begum, a forty-something mother living in the village of Katihara in the district of Gaibandha, it meant skipping meals and living in a near perpetual state of being vulnerable. The area her family lives in is prone to floods, which wreak havoc and cause death, disease, injury, economic loss and population displacement.

She also was vulnerable to the social and cultural barriers of unequal gender power relations that give women less say in household decisions and shut them out of disaster response decisions made in the wake of floods.

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