Resources on Care Economy

  1. © ILO 2024

    Gender equality and women workers

    Childcare shortfalls having major impact on gender equality in labour markets across Asia and the Pacific

    01 August 2023

    New report highlights impacts of shortfalls in childcare provision in the region, makes recommendations for change at all levels.

  2. © WOCinTech Chat 2024

    International Women’s Day

    ILO Director-General: "Let us invest in women as part of a human-centred recovery"

    08 March 2021

    To mark International Women’s Day, ILO Director-General paid tribute to the tremendous efforts made by women during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  3. © ILO 2024

    COVID-19 and gender equality

    COVID-19: G7 nations need to get gender equality right for a better future for women at work

    14 May 2020

    Fighting deep-rooted gender inequality must be part of countries’ responses to the crisis, says high-level meeting on the role of women in the post-COVID future.

  4. Publication

    Cooperatives meeting informal economy workers' child care needs - A Joint ILO and WIEGO Initiative

    25 April 2018

    Cooperatives set up and run by workers in the informal economy are among the solutions in meeting women workers’ care needs, while also helping protect their labour rights. This report complements the ILO's previous studies with cases from Brazil, India, and Guatemala on how informal economy workers’ organizations can mobilize through cooperatives to provide child care services to their members. The case studies highlight diverse forms of child care provision and outline the varied partnerships needed to implement and sustain child care services for informal economy workers.

  5. Publication

    Advancing domestic workers’ rights through cooperatives in Trinidad and Tobago: An ILO, NUDE and SWCC initiative

    18 April 2018

    This brief summarizes one example of the ILO’s work in advancing domestic workers’ cooperatives. The ILO supported the National Union of Domestic Workers (NUDE) in Trinidad and Tobago to provide their members with access to employment opportunities and improved working conditions through a cooperative society.

  6. Working Paper No. 1 / 2017

    Cash transfer programmes, poverty reduction and women’s economic empowerment: Experience from Mexico

    23 August 2017

    This working paper on cash transfers in Mexico presents the impact of a major national cash transfer programme on health, education, income, poverty, labour force participation, time use and bargaining power of women at the household and community level. Its results point to evidence that most of these gender-related interventions have focused on breaking the inter-generational cycle of poverty, particularly for disadvantaged girl children, but have been weaker in promoting women’s economic empowerment through employment or sustainable livelihoods. It also highlights the challenge of enhancing women’s economic empowerment with targeted actions aimed at reducing women’s time poverty and redistributing unpaid care responsibilities between women and men and between families and the State. This working paper is a joint publication of the Gender, Equality and Diversity Branch in the ILO Conditions of Work and Equality Department and the ILO Social Protection Department.

  7. International Women’s Day 2015

    The motherhood pay gap: A review of the issues, theory and international evidence

    06 March 2015

    Evidence that mothers suffer a wage penalty over and above the penalty for being a woman raises concerns not only for gender equality but also for the capacity of societies to manage a sustainable balance between their economic aims of active female participation in paid work and the social aims of providing a fair distribution of income to support the reproduction and rearing of children. These concerns underpin ILO Conventions designed to combat inequality in women’s position in paid employment, especially associated with motherhood status.