What are care insurance policies?
Care insurance policies are public insurance policies, from native to nationwide, that form how care work is acknowledged, offered, supported, and shared throughout society.
Policy is only one pillar inside a care system – that’s, how societies arrange care work by way of insurance policies, legal guidelines, budgets, providers, and infrastructure that assist guarantee folks can each give and obtain care.
UN Women promotes care insurance policies constructed across the 6R framework:
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Recognize care as the muse of thriving and gender-equal societies.Reduce energy-intensive unpaid home care work duties by way of infrastructure and know-how.Redistribute duties extra pretty between men and women, households and the state, households, communities, and companies.Reward the hundreds of thousands of care staff with honest pay, social safety, and respectable working situations.Represent care staff and caregivers in policymaking, organizations, and selections that have an effect on their lives.Resource care methods with public financing for care insurance policies, providers and infrastructure, requirements and coaching.
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By organizing care work as a public good and never solely a non-public accountability, care methods – and the insurance policies that uphold them – make an actual distinction in folks’s lives. This is very true for girls and women, who carry nearly all of care duties, paid and unpaid.
How are care insurance policies constructed – and by whom?
Care coverage doesn’t have one path of improvement – and in lots of locations, it continues to evolve, formed by governments in collaboration with caregivers, care receivers, the non-public sector, civil society organizations, and neighborhood companions.
Building a care system or growing a brand new coverage is usually a years-long course of. It requires proof, dialogue, coordination, and sustained dedication.
A powerful care system lays the muse for sensible options that strengthen households, increase alternatives for girls, and construct extra resilient economies and communities.
Of the greater than 12,000 contributors to Chile’s public dialogues:
28.1 %
are Indigenous Peoples and Afrodescendants
12.2 %
are migrants
38.8 %
recognized themselves as actively in want of care assist
80 %
are ladies
Care coverage in Chile: from a caregiver’s perspective to a president’s signature
In Chile, UN Women labored alongside the Government to assist the design, implementation, and documentation of the general public session course of. These consultations, in flip, knowledgeable Chile’s first National Support and Care Plan and the primary National Support and Care Policy (2025–2030).
In early 2026, the Chilean president signed the historic Chile Cuida (Chile Cares) into legislation, establishing the best to look after others, the best to obtain care, and the best to self-care.
The legislation offers the premise for Chile’s new National Support and Care System, which features a nationwide community (additionally known as Chile Cuida) that’s already connecting establishments, programmes, and providers to assist 70,000 individuals who want help with every day actions, in addition to for his or her caregivers. Today, the Chile Cuida community has greater than 216,000 registered caregivers.
Care coverage in Nigeria: state-level coverage formed by family information – and a worldwide alliance
In Cross River State, Nigeria, time-use surveys and a government-led technical working group – with assist from UN Women – are actively informing Nigeria’s first state-level care coverage.
Conducted in 2024, the time-use survey measured how people allocate their time throughout paid and unpaid work, private care, and leisure. With 3,600 households taking part, the findings had been stark: Women spend 5 occasions as many hours on unpaid care work, per day, as males.
The family survey proved how necessary it’s that care work be seen, valued, and supported – and that investing within the care financial system is just not solely good for kids’s well-being, however for girls’s financial empowerment and neighborhood improvement.
For inclusive-care advocates – like artist and educator Hannah Bassey-Duke, who serves on the technical working group – the State’s coverage improvement course of has felt like the primary time that the voices of caregivers and households are actually being heard. Bassey-Duke’s work with kids with disabilities helped her perceive the overwhelming duties positioned on moms. Many needed to depart their jobs or companies as a result of reasonably priced care providers and educated professionals had been restricted. “Every day”, explains Bassey-Duke, “I see mothers who are exhausted, isolated, and carrying unpaid care responsibilities with little recognition.” Not solely are State policymakers gathering proof from households, they’re gaining inspiration from stakeholders worldwide. Cross River State grew to become the primary authorities entity in West and Central Africa to affix the Global Alliance for Care, launched by Mexico’s National Institute of Women and UN Women. The Alliance contains greater than 350 members: governments, non-public sector companions, and tutorial, civil-society, and worldwide organizations. Kenya not too long ago launched its first National Care Policy following public dialogues and new information – together with a time-use survey supported by UN Women. The Government additionally invested in a National Care Needs Assessment, which recognized important gaps in care providers and infrastructure – gaps that, as soon as stuffed, will immediately enhance the every day lives of girls and households and create jobs. One such infrastructure hole is entry to wash water. Individual households may spend hours fetching water for every day consuming, cooking, and cleansing – a accountability overwhelming shouldered by ladies and women. As a part of its care agenda, the Laikipia County Government has distributed greater than 50,000 water tanks to considerably scale back the time and depth wanted for this care-work process. In West Pokot County, a spot in care providers is being addressed with the development of a brand new childcare centre inside Bendera market. An absence of childcare choices will not be a barrier for market distributors. The affect of the National Care Policy – drafted with UN Women’s direct assist – is already turning into seen by way of these easy however modern native options. There is not any one-size-fits-all method for constructing and implementing care insurance policies. Every authorities follows its personal path, formed by its historical past, priorities, and the folks driving change. Every day, hundreds of thousands of girls work tirelessly to maintain their households and communities. They handle households, collect meals, water, and gas, care for kids and family members, and supply emotional assist. This unpaid work interprets to much less time to hunt training, make an earnings, and even take part in public life and leisure. Policymaking that accounts for his or her experiences – by way of time-use surveys, wants assessments, public dialogues, and drawing on the 6R framework – is what makes for efficient and inclusive care methods. From the second we get up to the time we sleep, care work – paid and unpaid – shapes our lives, economies, and communities. Without care work, societies would merely cease functioning. Learn extra ReworkCare is UN Women’s world initiative that addresses the undervaluing and unequal division of care work to enhance the lives of girls and women worldwide. Through this initiative, UN Women is supporting governments and companions throughout 52 nations to develop, undertake, and implement nationwide care methods and insurance policies that acknowledge, scale back, redistribute, reward, and characterize paid and unpaid care work. In 2025 alone, 25 care-related legal guidelines, insurance policies, and plans had been developed or strengthened with UN Women’s assist – together with these in Chile, Kenya, and Nigeria.Care coverage in Kenya: the place information helps to shut infrastructure gaps
Why does it matter who shapes care insurance policies?
Care work retains the world working