Understanding the Care Economy: Women’s Role in Family and Society

Every morning, millions of women wake up before the rest of the household, prepare meals, get children ready for school, arrange care for elderly relatives, and manage the logistics of daily family life – all before a single paid hour of work begins. This labour is real, skilled, and physically demanding. Yet it doesn’t show up in GDP figures, employment records, or economic policy debates. That invisible infrastructure of daily life has a name: the care economy. Understanding it is essential to understanding how gender, development, and economic systems intersect.

What is the care economy? 🔗

The care economy refers to the full range of paid and unpaid activities involved in nurturing, sustaining, and supporting people across their lives. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), care work encompasses both direct, personal activities – feeding a child, nursing a sick relative, assisting an elderly person – and indirect care tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and managing medications. It includes formal, paid roles like nursing and childcare professionals, but also the vast body of unpaid work done within households and communities.

Care work is not a marginal activity. A peer-reviewed scoping review published in the National Library of Medicine notes that informal care, representing nearly 2 billion people globally, accounts for approximately 9% of global GDP – equivalent to USD $11 trillion. In the United States alone, the formal care economy is estimated to be worth $648 billion. The sector is also one of the fastest-growing in many economies, shaped by ageing populations, demographic shifts, and rising demand for health and social services.

Paid vs. unpaid care work 🔗

It is important to distinguish between the two main dimensions of the care economy. Paid care work takes place within the formal labour market – think hospital nurses, early childhood educators, home health aides, and domestic workers. Unpaid care work, by contrast, happens predominantly in households and communities, with no monetary compensation. As Gender and the Economy notes, while paid care roles exist within formal markets, the majority of care work globally remains unpaid. Both forms are essential to keeping families, communities, and economies functioning.

Women’s central role in the care economy 🔗

The care economy is disproportionately carried by women – not by coincidence, but because of deeply embedded social norms that treat caregiving as a natural female responsibility. According to the UNDP, women globally perform 76.2% of all unpaid care work, dedicating an average of 4 hours and 25 minutes per day compared to men’s 1 hour and 23 minutes. That translates to approximately 201 working days per year for women versus just 63 for men.

UN Women reports that women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men. In rural areas of low-income countries, women spend as many as 14 hours a day on unpaid care activities. UNDP data further reveals that 42% of women worldwide are unable to participate in paid employment because of care-related responsibilities – compared to just 6% of men.

The gendered burden from childhood onwards 🔗

This pattern does not begin in adulthood. The UN’s Second World Summit for Social Development highlights that girls begin contributing to care work from childhood, providing 160 million more hours of unpaid care daily than boys. These early patterns shape lifetime trajectories – limiting girls’ time for education, rest, and self-development, and setting up women for persistent economic disadvantage. The result is that 45% of working-age women are outside the labour force due to unpaid care responsibilities, compared with only 5% of men.

Impacts on women’s well-being and economic participation 🔗

The cumulative weight of unpaid care work is not just an economic issue – it has direct consequences for women’s health, autonomy, and opportunities. Oxfam describes unpaid care as a source of “time poverty” – a chronic shortage of time that leaves women unable to pursue education, rest, civic engagement, or income-generating work. Women in paid employment are not exempt either: even women working full-time continue to spend significantly more hours on unpaid care than their male counterparts. Research from Gender and the Economy confirms that women’s disproportionate care burden is a major factor preventing advancement into leadership roles or high-paying sectors that demand long working hours.

The burden is further compounded by race and migration status. In the United States, women of colour have faced steeper drops in labour force participation – particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic – due to the intersection of care responsibilities, racial discrimination in hiring, and concentration in high-exposure service jobs. Immigrant women are similarly overrepresented in paid care roles, often for poverty wages and with limited legal protections.

The link between care work and economic stability 🔗

Care work is, in the words of the ILO, “the work that makes all other work possible.” Without someone performing care tasks at home – preparing meals, managing children’s education, ensuring the health and recovery of sick family members – the workforce itself could not function. Workers arrive at jobs rested and fed. Children grow into future workers. The elderly are supported as they age. None of this happens without care labour.

Yet this contribution is almost entirely absent from conventional economic measurement. ILOSTAT notes that until recently, the value of unpaid domestic and care work was routinely excluded from budget planning and national policy agendas. GDP, as measured through the System of National Accounts (SNA), counts market transactions but leaves out the enormous volume of productive activity happening in households. A 2025 study in the journal New Political Economy argues that relying on GDP data that excludes unpaid household services creates significant blind spots in policy – effectively ignoring the work of millions of women and men that underpins the formal economy.

The economic value that goes uncounted 🔗

Oxfam estimates that women and girls carry out 12.5 billion hours of unpaid care work every day. When valued at minimum wage, this would represent a contribution to the global economy of at least $10.8 trillion annually – more than three times the size of the global tech industry. Equal Measures 2030 similarly finds that globally unpaid work is equivalent to $10.8 trillion, with only four economies in the world scoring above this value. In Latin America and the Caribbean, unpaid care work represents between 15.7% and 24.2% of regional GDP – with women contributing 75% of that share.

For countries that have begun to count this work, the numbers are striking. The UK’s Office for National Statistics calculates that the value of unpaid household services reached £1.7 trillion in 2023 – equivalent to 61% of the country’s GDP. In Colombia, UN Women reports that through its National Time Use Survey, unpaid care work was found to represent approximately 20% of the country’s expanded GDP – making it one of the most economically significant sectors in the country, if it were formally counted.

Why invisibility perpetuates inequality 🔗

When care work is not counted, it is not valued – and when it is not valued, the people doing it remain invisible in policy, budgeting, and economic decision-making. UN Women is direct: this invisibility is one of the biggest drivers of poverty and inequality worldwide. Women’s unpaid contributions subsidise the formal economy – reducing the cost of labour, filling gaps left by inadequate social services, and supporting worker productivity – yet women receive no compensation, recognition, or social protection in return. The result is a deeply unequal exchange that is structurally embedded in how economies are organised.

Recognizing and valuing the care economy 🔗

There is growing global consensus that the care economy cannot remain invisible. Recognising it requires both better data collection and stronger policy frameworks. The ILO’s resolution on decent work and the care economy – adopted at the 112th International Labour Conference – calls for internationally agreed statistical standards as the foundation for comprehensive, comparable data on paid and unpaid care work. The ILO’s statistical standards-setting process, directed to produce new global standards by 2028, represents a significant step toward filling these measurement gaps.

Time use surveys and satellite accounts 🔗

Two instruments have emerged as the primary tools for making care work visible in national statistics: time use surveys (TUS) and household satellite accounts. Open Data Watch explains that time use surveys record how individuals allocate time across a 24-hour period, capturing unpaid domestic and care activities that labour force surveys miss entirely. These surveys provide the data needed to calculate the economic value of care work and reveal the stark gender disparities in how it is distributed.

Satellite accounts go a step further by integrating those estimates into national accounting frameworks alongside conventional GDP. Observer Research Foundation highlights Mexico and South Korea as pioneering examples: both countries have developed household satellite accounts using time use data, enabling their governments to quantify unpaid care work’s contribution to national productivity and use those findings to shape gender-responsive policy. The SDG Knowledge Hub notes that while fewer than half of UN member states had conducted at least one time use survey by the most recent reporting period, those that have done so have seen tangible policy benefits – from expanded childcare services to revised social protection frameworks.

The case for investment 🔗

Investing in the care economy is not only a matter of gender justice – it is a sound economic strategy. The ILO estimates that investment in gender-equal leave, universal childcare, and long-term care services could generate up to 299 million new jobs by 2035. Closing current policy gaps would require an annual investment equivalent to 4.2% of total global GDP by 2035 – but this would be partially recouped through increased tax revenues from higher employment. The ILO’s Director of Conditions of Work has called for decisive action in three areas: increasing investment in care, fostering government-employer dialogue, and implementing rights-based policies aligned with international labour standards.

The 5R framework – Recognize, Reduce, Redistribute, Reward, and Represent – has become a widely endorsed policy blueprint. Recognition means formally measuring and acknowledging care work. Reducing the burden involves investing in public care services that take over tasks currently falling on individuals. Redistribution means sharing responsibilities more equitably across genders and between households and the state. Rewarding care means ensuring paid care workers receive fair wages and social protection. And representation means including caregivers in the policymaking processes that shape their lives. Together, these five principles provide a pathway from invisibility to equity – not just for women, but for the broader societies and economies that depend on care every single day.

What do you think? If unpaid care work were formally included in a country’s GDP calculations, how do you think it would change the way governments design social protection and labour policies? And given that the burden of care falls so disproportionately on women, is it possible to achieve genuine economic equality without first redistributing care responsibilities?

References

1. https://www.ilo.org/topics-and-sectors/care-economy
2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12116328/
3. https://www.gendereconomy.org/care-work/
4. https://www.undp.org/latin-america/blog/missing-piece-valuing-womens-unrecognized-contribution-economy
5. https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/faqs/faqs-what-is-unpaid-care-work-and-how-does-it-power-the-economy
6. https://www.undp.org/georgia/blog/care-economy-lika-ablotia
7. https://social.desa.un.org/world-summit-2025/blog/invisible-yet-indispensable-why-the-world-runs-on-womens-unpaid-care-work
8. https://www.oxfam.org/en/not-all-gaps-are-created-equal-true-value-care-work
9. https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/unpaid-work/measuring-unpaid-domestic-and-care-work/
10. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13563467.2025.2599190
11. https://equalmeasures2030.org/blogs/recognising-the-unpaid-care-economy-for-a-gender-equal-future/
12. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/satelliteaccounts/bulletins/householdsatelliteaccountuk/2023
13. https://lac.unwomen.org/en/stories/noticia/2025/06/tejiendo-comunidades-que-idan-mujeres-territorios-y-politicas-publicas-en-colombia
14. https://ilostat.ilo.org/advancing-the-measurement-of-care-work-and-the-care-economy/
15. https://opendatawatch.com/publications/time-use-data-shape-better-policies/
16. https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/accounting-for-care-towards-a-more-inclusive-measurement-of-india-s-economy
17. https://sdg.iisd.org/commentary/guest-articles/the-care-economy-in-beyond-gdp-paradigms/
18. https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/greater-investment-care-could-create-almost-300-million-jobs
19. https://mexicobusiness.news/talent/news/global-care-economy-gains-momentum-ilo