Climate Change and Care Work: Integrated Solutions for Intersecting Crises

Climate change and care work are seldom addressed together in policy discussions. As climate change accelerates, its impacts intensify demands for care and disproportionately burden women and marginalized communities. Extreme weather events, resource scarcity, and environmental degradation create new care needs and strain already fragile care systems, deepening social and gender inequalities.

This policy brief from The Asia Foundation, Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and Fundación Avina examines how climate change intensifies care demands, weakens care systems, and exacerbates inequalities, and explores how adaptation and mitigation strategies can be employed to ameliorate those stresses. The brief also discusses how care is crucial to building resilience for increasingly frequent climate-related disasters. The policy brief presents actionable recommendations for integrating care systems into climate resilience strategies, advocating for gender-inclusive policies, sustainable care infrastructure, and democratic representation of care workers in decision-making. Investing in the care economy is not only essential for social equity but also a strategic approach to building resilient, sustainable communities in the face of our changing environment.