UNRISD Research and Policy Brief 9

Why Care Matters for Social Development

Care work, both paid and unpaid, contributes to well-being, social development and economic growth. But the costs of providing care are unequally borne across gender and class. Families in all their diverse forms remain the key institution in meeting care needs. The challenge is to forge policies that support them and are grounded in certain key principles: recognize and guarantee the rights of care-givers and care-receivers; distribute the costs more evenly across society; and support professional, decently paid and compassionate forms of care. Care underpins social and economic development, yet arrangements for its provision in developing countries have been little studied.

February 2010