Why care matters?

Care is part of everyone’s life.

We all provide care, need care, or will need care and support at different moments of our lives.

What care is

Care is a need, a form of work, and a right. It is essential to everyday well-being, gender equality, social justice, human rights, and sustainable development.

Recognizing, valuing, redistributing, rewarding, representing, and investing in care is essential to building fair and sustainable care systems — and to moving towards a care society based on human rights, gender equality, social justice, and co-responsibility.

Care work includes the activities that sustain the day-to-day well-being of people from different perspectives: physical, economic, emotional, social, and environmental.

Care can be direct or indirect, paid or unpaid, formal or informal. It can take place in homes, communities, public services, workplaces, institutions, and territories.

Direct Care

Direct, personal, and relational care activities provided to another person.

Care can be direct or indirect, paid or unpaid, formal or informal. It can take place in homes, communities, public services, workplaces, institutions, and territories.

Daily well-being

Indirect Care

Activities that make care possible and sustain daily life.

Examples: Cooking, cleaning, washing, collecting water, managing households, maintaining safe environments, stewarding natural resources.

Care is not only something we give.
It is something every person needs throughout life.

HOW CARE IS ORGANIZED TODAY

The way care is currently organized does not reflect its true value for people, communities, economies, and societies.

76.2%

of all unpaid care work worldwide is performed by women.

Source: ILO, 2018
3x

Women spend more than three times as much time on unpaid care and domestic work as men.

Source: ILO, 2018
80%

of domestic workers are in informal employment.

Source: ILO, 2022
18M

health workers could be missing globally by 2030.

Source: WHO, 2022

Care work is still too often invisible, undervalued, unpaid or poorly paid, and disproportionately carried out by women and girls.

CARE WORK AND GENDER EQUALITY

Care work, whether paid or unpaid, falls mostly on women.

The unequal distribution of care is one of the structural barriers to gender equality. It shapes how time, income, opportunities, and power are distributed within households, communities, labor markets, and societies.

Time

Unequal care responsibilities reduce women’s time for education, paid work, rest, participation, and self-care.

Income

Unpaid and poorly paid care work affects women’s economic autonomy and social protection.

Rights

Care responsibilities can limit the exercise of other human rights.

Participation

The unequal organization of care affects women’s ability to participate fully in public, political, economic, and community life.

There can be no real gender equality without transforming the way care is organized.

Towards a Care Society

A care society recognizes care as work, as a right and as a public good.

A care society recognizes care as work, as a right, and as a public good. It understands care as a fundamental cross-cutting issue for sustainable development and as a shared responsibility across society.

Care as a right

Everyone should have access to care and support throughout life.

Care as work

All care work must be recognized, valued, protected, and fairly rewarded.

Care as a public good

Care systems require public responsibility, sustainable financing, and collective action.

Care as shared responsibility

Care must be redistributed across society, not left to women, families, or communities alone.

THE 5RS OF CARE

The 5Rs of Care provide a framework to guide public policy, advocacy, and collective action.

The 5Rs help move care from invisibility to recognition, from inequality to co-responsibility, and from precariousness to rights.

CARE AS A HUMAN RIGHT

A human rights approach to care recognizes the dignity and rights of both those who provide care and those who receive care and support.

An Intersectional and Contextual Approach to Care

Care inequalities are not experienced in the same way by everyone.

People’s care needs, responsibilities, barriers, and opportunities are shaped by many intersecting factors.

Transforming care requires approaches that are intersectional, contextual, and responsive to different realities.

A care society must work for everyone, especially those whose care needs and care work have been historically made invisible.

INVESTMENT IN CARE PUBLIC POLICIES

Care is not a cost;
it is an investment

Financing care systems is essential for economic resilience, gender equality, and inclusive development.

Investment

Care creates value

Care work makes daily life, well-being, and all other work possible.

Decent Work

Care creates jobs

Investment in care can generate decent employment and strengthen essential services.

Equality

Care reduces inequality