Care: A critical investment for gender equality and the rights of women and girls

If women’s unpaid work were assigned a monetary value, it would exceed 40 per cent of GDP in some countries. Globally, women and girls spend more than 2.5 times as many hours a day on unpaid care work than men. This disparity prevents women and girls from fully realizing their rights and opportunities, throughout their lives. Women and girls remain the default providers of poorly paid and unpaid care work everywhere, and the most marginalized women – those who live in poverty, migrant women, women in informal work, and women from minority groups – shoulder the largest share of unpaid care work. An estimated 80 per cent of paid domestic workers worldwide are women.

The world needs to confront the serious disconnect between what is essential for societies and economies to thrive, what is counted, and what is prioritized in budgets and policies. This is a fundamental human rights issue, and one of the biggest drivers of gender inequality and poverty.

When we invest in comprehensive care systems, we are investing in women, communities, societies and economies. This can simultaneously reduce women’s time and income poverty, enhance their labour market participation and increase the number of decent care jobs, potentially creating almost 300 million jobs by 2035.

Today, in the second time that the world commemorates the International Day of Care and Support, we celebrate efforts being made across the world, from Colombia and Panama recently passing laws establishing National Care Systems, to the parliaments of Brazil and Chile similarly discussing their own laws, to Kenya using the data of its first national Time Use Survey to inform the development of its national care policy. We welcome the Philippines’ Caregivers Welfare Act that upholds the rights of caregivers; Spain’s approval of a strategy for a new model of long-term care in the community; and Canada’s work with provincial, territorial, and Indigenous partners to provide a high-quality, affordable, flexible, and inclusive early learning and child care system, with new investments totalling up to $30 billion over five years.

Today, we call for bold actions that transform care systems. We rally behind the Human Rights Council’s call for the centrality of care and support from a human rights perspective and the Economic and Social Council’s emphasis on promoting care and support systems for social development.

Engaging through multi-partner and multistakeholder platforms such as the Global Alliance of Care or the Generation Equality Action Coalitions we can support innovation, experience sharing and achieve greater impact.

As we approach the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, with its resounding recognition that equal is greater, let us all commit to action to transform care systems. Let us commit to the end of undervalued and gendered division of care work and instead build thriving, equitable and sustainable economies and societies for today and tomorrow.