International Day of Care and Support: Care, the foundation of everything

2025 Theme: Care and Support for All – Addressing all rights-holders, including those providing and receiving care and support .

Care work keeps the world running. From the moment we wake up to the time we sleep, care shapes our lives, our economies and communities. It's in the meals prepared, the children walked to school, the aging parents supported, the laundry washed and folded, and the countless invisible tasks that make daily life possible. Without care work, societies would simply stop functioning.

Yet here's the problem: we've been looking at care work all wrong.

Care work is not a women's issue – it's everyone’s reality, and responsibility

We've all heard it before: caring is "women's work." That outdated belief limits women’s rights and opportunities and is holding us all back.

In Europe and Central Asia, women spend on average 3.4 times more hours on unpaid care and domestic work than men. The gap is highest in Türkiye (5.2 times), followed by the Western Balkans (3.8 times), Eastern Europe (3.3 times), and Central Asia (2.4 times). Women also hold most paid care jobs – as nannies, domestic workers, carers, nurses, and teachers. But these roles are often informal, low-paid, and lack basic protections like healthcare or paid leave.

The way care work is organized today restricts women’s time to pursue education, access decent paid work, take part in public life, or simply rest. Across the region, only 46 percent of married women aged 25–49 are employed, compared to 85 percent of men.

We all need care, and we all provide it

Throughout life we all move between giving and receiving care, sometimes doing both at once.

Yet, the unpaid care work that underpins every economy remains invisible and undervalued. If women’s unpaid labor were counted, it would exceed 40 per cent of GDP in some countries.  

Transforming care work: From invisible and undervalued to a public good

Real change starts with seeing care work as essential and skilled work – not a favor or woman’s duty, but a public good that deserves recognition, investment, and shared responsibility.

A care system that works means:

• Recognizing care as the foundation of thriving and gender-equal societies.  
• Reducing energy-intensive unpaid domestic care work tasks through infrastructure and technology  
• Redistribute responsibilities more fairly between women and men, households and the state, families, communities and businesses.  
• Rewarding the millions of care workers with fair pay, social protection, and decent working conditions  
• Representing care workers and caregivers in policymaking, organizations and decisions that affect their lives  
• Resourcing care systems with public financing for care policies, services and infrastructure, standards and training.

Investing in care systems delivers real returns: stronger economies, greater gender equality, and more resilient communities.

Ready to reimagine care?

Explore stories, research, and solutions that are building a care society – one where care is at the heart of thriving, just economies that work for everyone.