Recognize
What’s the issue?
Care work is the work that makes all other work possible. Yet it is often overlooked, taken-for-granted and treated as a private responsibility rather than a shared social and economic necessity. This lack of visibility makes it difficult for policy-makers to regulate care work. The lack of recognition of its value and time-consuming nature, perpetuates the assumption that caregiving is a given rather than a quantifiable contribution to society. Valuing, recognizing and accounting for care work equitably is essential to achieving gender equality and building more inclusive societies.
Local, regional and metropolitan governments can formally acknowledge, measure, and visibilize the social and economic value of paid and unpaid care work by including it in economic assessments, statistics, public policies, data and awareness raising. It is essential to understand both what the care needs are and what policies, programs, services and infrastructure already exist to better respond to the needs of the population.
Time-use surveys
Local governments can carry out time-use surveys to better understand and account for unequal distributions of unpaid care and domestic work, and address this through policies, programs and integrated services. Undertaking data collection surveys on how care responsibilities are distributed in families and between men and women provides critical insights for policy-makers.
Time Use Survey, Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Carried out by the General Office of Statistics and Census, the Time Use Survey gathers information about the different activities undertaken by people and the amount of time spent on them. These include: paid labour, domestic work, caregiving, education, mobility, recreation and rest. This information is useful when creating public policies.
Accurate and gender-disaggregated data
Data is critical to better understand patterns of paid and unpaid care work in each local context and respond with appropriate policies and services. This includes accounting for care in measures of economic progress and cross-cutting public policies, strategies and investments. City governments should strive to develop data on time-use, on women and men’s literacy, education levels, employment, public participation and health and wellbeing, among other locally-appropriate indicators, to better understand the role care work plays in shaping men’s and women’s time, energy and opportunities.
Care indicators, Mexico City (Mexico)
An effort of the Secretariat for Women to compile, analyze and disseminate statistical information and visibilise key information for decision-making on closing the gaps between women and men that persist in different areas of public and private life.
A care economy audit
To quantify the economic value of unpaid care work in the city and document the social and economic multipliers of investments in care, care-economy audits are a vital strategy. This can then inform city budgeting and resource allocation, ensuring unpaid caregivers’ needs are accounted for in urban and territorial planning.
Care-policy mapping
Subnational governments can map local care-related policies, services and infrastructure in their city - such as day clinics, services for persons with disabilities, accessible transportation, or child-care facilities in informal markets - to understand which services, programs and stakeholders are already providing care-related services in the city. Caregivers’ and care receivers’ needs could similarly be mapped, through public engagement processes, questionnaires or surveys in public centres like clinics and schools. These mappings can be made publicly available, for example, on a city website or mobile App, for local residents to access as a key resource, while can similarly be used internally to better integrate programs and services.
Map of care and support, Buenos Aires (Argentina)
The Care map is an interactive online tool that highlights the various caregiver and care-receiver services around the city, with the aim to make it easier for caregivers to more effectively organise care responsibilities with the public and private services available.
Norms and cultural beliefs that maintain that care work is inherently a women’s responsibility perpetuate the unequal distribution and lack of recognition of care work. Integrated care policies, public awareness campaigns and educational programs can highlight the importance of care work and caregivers, as well as the importance of its equitable distribution.
Municipal care systems
Local governments can institutionalise the value of care work, and recognise the need to tackle women’s time poverty, through comprehensive municipal care policies and integrated care systems. In this way, the city can prioritise care as a right and a social good. Such a policy should aim to be transformative, gender-sensitive and function across city departments and mandates, coupling services to form a coordinated network of programs that center the voices, needs and aspirations of caregivers and care receivers’.
Municipal Care Policy, Belo Horizonte (Brazil)
In September 2024, Belo Horizonte’s Care Policy came into force, recognising care as a right and public responsibility. The policy defines care as all paid or unpaid work, carried out by the public or private sector, with the aim of meeting the material, psychological and social needs of the population. Its objectives include: ensuring the right to care for all who need it and guaranteeing the well-being and autonomy of people who provide care and people who need care. Similar integrated care policies can be found in Rosario’s (Argentina) Plan Cuidar and Mexico City’s (Mexico) PILARES.
District Care System, Bogotá (Colombia)
The city has developed a comprehensive care system which operates through four main components: Care Blocks, which provide accessible, centralized services within urban areas; Care Buses, mobile units that reach caregivers in rural and underserved areas; Home Care Delivery, offering in-home support for caregivers of individuals with severe disabilities; and Men’s Care Schools, which promote cultural change by training men in caregiving skills to share household responsibilities.
Public awareness-raising
Through local media, community workshops, public events and trainings, local governments can contribute to shifting public perceptions on care, challenging the belief that it is a ‘women’s job’ or a low-skilled occupation and highlighting its essential role in all of our daily lives. Developing an impactful, and context-specific narrative is important for garnering both political will and local community support.
Caregivers Day, Canton de Genève (Switzerland)
Geneva is among 10 Cantons that have hosted public awareness campaigns to celebrate the important contribution of caregivers to society and highlight the value of care work. The campaign also comes with hotlines for caregivers, to address burnout and access support services.
Education, workshops and campaigns
Through education and campaigns, cities can tackle disinformation and fake news to highlight the critical contribution of migrant workers in the care sector, and to tackle xenophobic and discriminatory social behaviours against migrant populations.
Anti-Rumour Strategy, Bilbao (Spain)
Since 2013, the City Council of Bilbao has been working on an Anti-Rumour Strategy to combat negative attitudes and stereotypes towards foreigners and migrants. The program includes a specific focus on youth, with ‘agents’ between the ages of 13-17 taking on the role of countering harmful rumours.
Reduce