PSI has commissioned a study that focuses on the state of care arrangements in different countries around the world that will contribute to the discussion on how an agenda for transformation could be advanced. An agenda that will rebuild the social organisation of care, based on the principles of social co-responsibility, equality, and decent work.

In the context of the activities leading up to the Global Day of Action on Care in 2021, the study was launched virtually, on Thursday 28 October at 4-6pm CEST.

Background

The issue of care has definitively taken center stage in analyses, narratives, and proposals. Although it is not a new issue, it is undeniable that the dramatic context of the global pandemic has served as fertile ground to definitively erase its invisibility.

More than ever before, the centrality of care work in ensuring the sustainability of life and of the economic and social system has become clear. From frontline health and care work to direct care at home (increased by insufficient, commoditised and/or inaccessible care services), the persistent sexual division of labour in paid and unpaid care, and its precariousness in many cases, also became clear.

The idea that the way in which care work and the daily reproduction of life is organised today is at the basis of persistent inequality, has also gained new strength. This is the domain where gender and socio-economic inequalities intersect, together with issues of migration and race.

Addressing this issue is therefore key to any agenda for social justice and transformation.

Public Services International (PSI), the global union representing workers in the public services, and covering the entire health and social services sector as well as public and private social care in all occupational categories, has focussed its efforts in changing the course and the discourse on care. PSI is working with a group of progressive feminists, human rights and tax justice organisations who jointly launched the Manifesto: Rebuilding the social organisation of care which lays out how we can rebuild the social basis of care and calls for crafting a global movement in support.

The Study

PSI has commissioned a study that focuses on the state of care arrangements in different countries around the world that will contribute to the discussion on how an agenda for transformation could be advanced. An agenda that will rebuild the social organisation of care, based on the principles of social co-responsibility, equality, and decent work.

The study:

• takes a brief conceptual journey from the notion of the care economy to that of social organisation of care (SOC).

• reviews the fundamental notions that allow us to understand how care is organised in the interaction of households, the state, the market, and the community.

• addresses the social organisation of care in eight country cases, selected from countries in the global North and South, and across continents. The review includes South Africa, Kenya, Canada, Argentina, Austria, Poland, India, and Australia.

The main points of the review in each country are presented for the following thematic areas: i) time use and unpaid care work; ii) care-related leave schemes (maternity, parental); iii) care services; iv) working conditions and social protection for care workers; and v) migration and care work.

Based on the analysis, the study briefly summarizes some concrete proposals for rebuilding the SOC that which aim to contribute to an informed debate and advocacy on the issue for trade unions, in the world of feminism and in global governance advocacy spaces.