Understanding the “Care Economy”
If all the world’s care workers were one national economy, it would be among the largest, in hours worked, in the world. It would also consist mostly of women, and they would be mostly unpaid.
In Asia and the Pacific, as in much of the world, tradition consigns the care of children, the sick, and the elderly to mothers, wives, and daughters, and these unpaid obligations perpetuate inequalities in work, society, and the home, depriving women of their own human flourishing and their countries of a big chunk of potential GDP.
Yet, care work is also a cornerstone of economic and social life.
In this edition of the InAsia podcast, the Foundation’s Ankita Panda and Ikram Abdullah discuss the tangle of cultural and economic issues that define the “care economy.”
Read the report Towards a Resilient Care Ecosystem in Asia And the Pacific: Promising Practices, Lessons Learned, and Pathways for Action on Decent Care Work.
Read the report Roadmap for Action on the Care Economy in Asia and the Pacific.
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