Canada's feminist approach to addressing unpaid and paid care work through international assistance

This guidance aims to provide implementing partners with a better understanding of the Government of Canada's approach to addressing unpaid and paid care work through international assistance, particularly with regard to developing care programming anchored in a feminist approach. It includes information on how we expect implementing partners to integrate care issues into their analysis and project design.

Care work terminology
Why unpaid and paid care work matters
Unpaid and paid care work in international assistance policy and programming
Feminist principles for Canada's interventions in unpaid and paid care work
Programmatic entry points: a "5 Rs" approach to care work
Tips on including care issues in GBA+, project design and delivery
Related links

Care work terminology

Unpaid care work

Unpaid care work is defined as informal caregiving undertaken without monetary compensation, including:

direct care of persons, including children, older persons and persons with disabilities
indirect care such as cooking, cleaning, washing clothes
related activities like collecting water and fuel

Paid care work

Paid care work is defined as direct care for persons, including personal care and related domestic tasks, done within a household or institution, for payment and/or profit, often within the informal sector. This can include:

domestic work, defined by the ILO as "work performed in or for a household or households" and encompassing personal and household care
long-term care workers, health care workers, crèche workers, early childhood educators and others, as long as they provide personal care services as part of their role

Care economy

The care economy is made up of all forms of care work, both unpaid and paid, delivered formally and informally, by and through the household, community, state, private sector, civil society and others.

Time poverty

Time poverty refers to a lack of discretionary time, including time used to meet basic requirements for rest and leisure, owing to excessive hours spent at work, either paid or unpaid work.

Why unpaid and paid care work matters

Care work is essential for human well-being and sustainable economic growth. But across the world, care work continues to be overlooked, undervalued and highly gendered. Globally, ILO data suggests that 16.4 billion hours/day are spent in unpaid care work, the equivalent of US$11 trillion or 9% of global GDP, making it twice as large as the global agriculture sector.

Women aged 15 and above spend on average 3.2 times more than men on unpaid care work (this varies by region: 1.7X in Americas; 3.4X in Africa; 4.1X in Asia Pacific; 4.7X in Arab States, according to ILO data). A significant proportion of unpaid care work involves drudgery, which combined with time poverty can result in physical and emotional strain (sometimes known as 'depletion'). The disproportionate responsibility for unpaid care work carried by women and girls restricts their opportunities for education, employment, political and social engagement and leisure, affects their health, and deepens their vulnerability to poverty.

The gendered distribution of unpaid care work also varies by household and community, with factors such as religion, culture and income level playing a role, affecting women and girls who experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination the most. When women of working age are unavailable to provide care, the household often turns to children, particularly adolescent girls, and older women to fill this role.

A UNICEF report released in 2016 estimated that girls aged 5-14 spend 40% more time on unpaid household chores and collecting water and firewood compared to boys their age, with girls between 10 and 14 years old in South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa spending nearly double the amount of time. Higher numbers of girls than boys often drop out of secondary school for reasons including the expectation that they should contribute to household work. Children's performance of light work including household chores can make important contributions to household well-being and their own transition to adulthood. But in cases where the amount and type of unpaid care work being done by children, especially girls, prevents them from attending school or training, jeopardizes their safety, health or development, or deprives them of their childhood, their potential or their dignity, it can be considered child labour, as per ILO definitions.

Women are also disproportionately represented in the informal paid care economy, which is characterized by low pay, low status, poor working conditions and limited social protections. Globally, ILO data shows that 19.3% of female employment is in the paid care workforce. The paid care workforce includes 75.6 million domestic workers worldwide, 76.2% of whom are women. Of all domestic workers, 81.2% are in informal employment. These workers experience some of the worst working conditions across the care workforce and are particularly vulnerable to exploitation.

Unpaid and paid care work are two sides of the same coin. The lack of recognition and value afforded to unpaid care work is mirrored in the way that paid care work is thought of as "women's work". And for individual women, any reduction in their own unpaid care work responsibilities is often based on their access to an underpaid, vulnerable and feminized care workforce.

The challenges associated with unpaid and paid care work are exacerbated in fragile contexts and during periods of crisis, including natural disasters and conflicts. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the unequal nature of unpaid and paid care work. It has exposed the essential nature of care work and exacerbated the gender inequality that characterises it. School and childcare closures, family illness and overwhelmed health services have substantially increased unpaid and paid care work pressure on women and girls, with negative effects on their capacity to participate in employment, education and public life. Health and long-term care workers are disproportionately women. They face a double caregiving burden with additional demands placed on health services requiring longer working hours combined with increased care work at home. Domestic workers, particularly migrant domestic workers, face worsened working conditions, reduced job security and increased health risks. These negative effects for women and families are anticipated to be long-lasting without proactive interventions.

Unpaid and paid care work in international assistance policy and programming

The global policy agenda has begun to recognize the pressing need to address women's and girls' disproportionate and heavy responsibility for care work and the poor working conditions of care workers. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 (Gender Equality), target 5.4, calls on States to "recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate" in order to achieve gender equality and sustainable development.

The Government of Canada is developing programming that helps address unpaid care work and the disproportionate burden of care shouldered by women around the world. This approach is founded on Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy, which recognizes that supporting gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is the best way to build a more peaceful, more inclusive and more prosperous world. Addressing unpaid and paid care work issues and investing in the care economy offers the opportunity for a triple win. It is good for:

gender equality and women's empowerment
the well-being of children and all those cared for
the economy, women's access to the labour force and decent work opportunities

With the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating inequalities and shining a spotlight on the looming care crisis, we are seeking to deepen and scale up programming designed to address these challenges, through programming that recognizes, reduces and addresses the unequal distribution of unpaid and paid care work, and that supports and protects the rights of unpaid and paid care workers to address a root cause of global inequality. Canada has an opportunity to raise the profile of unpaid and paid care work issues internationally, gather and disseminate evidence on what works to address unpaid and paid care work issues, and catalyze meaningful and lasting change in this critical area.

To help meet these objectives, the Government of Canada will seek to deepen and scale up programming designed to address care issues by considering support to stand-alone initiatives whose main objectives are to address unpaid and/or paid care work issues in a gender transformative way, as well as to projects that integrate care considerations as part of broader project objectives.

Because care issues are relevant across all of the Feminist International Assistance Policy action areas, sectors and regions, Canada is adopting a holistic approach to integrating care considerations to address the issue effectively. Through its programming on care, Canada will aim to enhance the participation of women and girls in economic, educational, political, community and leisure activities aligned to their own choice, and the protection and promotion of the rights and needs of all unpaid and paid care workers, particularly women and girls.

To ensure that programming takes care issues into account, in all new projects submitted for funding, we will require implementing partners to integrate care issues in their projects' GBA+ and human rights analyses, and to use this information to inform project design and theory of change as appropriate (see guidance below for further details). We will assess proposals by considering the extent to which they incorporate a clear assessment of care issues as identified through the GBA+ and approaches to addressing care-related challenges and opportunities, or explain why this is not relevant.

We also recognize that a failure to address unpaid care work issues may limit the ability of projects across action areas to reach expected outcomes. Conversely, effectively addressing the systemic barriers women and girls face due to their unpaid care work responsibilities is key to enabling their meaningful participation, with the potential to enhance the depth, sustainability and scale of project outcomes. As such, through GBA+, implementing partners are also required to assess the extent to which care-related issues may hinder project outcomes, and where challenges are identified, propose approaches to address them. Expenses related to care, such as the provision of child care facilities for beneficiaries participating in training programmes, may be allowable if it can be demonstrated that they facilitate the achievement of project objectives. Implementing partners are also encouraged to revisit operational projects to consider how care responsibilities might impact projects' abilities to meet expected results, and seek ways to address this.

Feminist principles for Canada's interventions in unpaid and paid care work

The following principles, framed around Canada's overarching feminist principles, guide our interventions in unpaid and paid care work. They should be read together with the Feminist Approach - Innovation and Effectiveness Guidance Note and other guidance and policy on gender equality.

Human rights-based and inclusive

This requires assessing the inequalities experienced by women and girls in all their diversity, looking at how intersecting identities such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, migration status, and ability influence women's and girls' lived experiences of unpaid and paid care work.

Strategic and focused

Initiatives should be strategic and focused to best address inequities in care work and have the greatest potential to enhance gender equality, such as gender-transformative programs, policies, laws, economic and social reforms that can catalyze sustainable change (e.g. parental leave, pension reform).

Transformative and activist

Initiatives should engage with women's rights organizations, networks of youth including young feminists, men and boys, communities and the private and public sectors to address unequal power relations, systemic discrimination and harmful norms and practices that underpin inequities in care work, and empower women and girls to make decisions on how they choose to use their own time.

Evidence-based and accountable

Initiatives should be informed by GBA+ and human rights analysis, lessons learned, and with a strong commitment to monitoring and data collection, including in sensitive areas such as social norms change.

Programmatic entry points: a "5 Rs" approach to care work

There are five entry points for addressing care work in Canada-funded programming, anchored by Canada's commitment to gender equality and human rights:

recognizing the value of unpaid and poorly paid care work
reducing drudgery and hours spent on unpaid care work
redistributing responsibility for care work more equitably, both within the household and outside it
ensuring unpaid and paid care workers are represented and have a voice
responding to the rights and needs of unpaid and paid care workers

This "5 Rs" approach (Recognize, Redistribute, Reduce, Represent, Respond) is directly informed by a series of "3/4/5 Rs" frameworks on care work, initially designed by Diane Elson (2008) and further elaborated by various organizations including Oxfam, ActionAid, the Institute for Development Studies and most recently the ILO. ^{Footnote 1}

Recognizing the value of unpaid and poorly paid care work

Through its projects and partnerships, the Government of Canada can contribute to the recognition of unpaid and paid care work done primarily by women and girls in many ways, such as by:

Supporting and advocating for governments, including National Statistical Bureaus, as well as civil society and other stakeholders, to measure and value the gender gap in unpaid and underpaid care work.

For example, national time use studies or embedding time use modules in household surveys, efforts to calculate or estimate the value of unpaid care work, and supporting country-level analysis such as the costs of girls dropping out of school due to domestic responsibilities.

Encouraging the development of evidence-based policies, legislation and programs that recognize care work as a collective responsibility (as opposed to the sole responsibility of women and girls) and that protect the rights of care workers.
Building institutional capacity of governments, partners and other social actors to recognize and value unpaid and paid care work and respond accordingly.
Supporting advocacy and social mobilization of women's, children's and youth rights organizations, networks and movements, including young feminists, working to address the root causes of the gender gap in unpaid care work, and pushing care issues onto the development agenda.
Supporting gender-based budgeting, or "care budgets", that prioritize the allocation of resources to services and initiatives directly related to care, with the direct participation of women and women's rights organizations.
Supporting the professionalization of the paid care workforce through skills development and accreditation.

Reducing drudgery and hours spent on unpaid care work

Through its projects and partnerships, the Government of Canada can help reduce the drudgery and hours spent on unpaid care work in many ways, such as by:

Supporting evidence-based advocacy for government policy and public and private investment in quality, inclusive infrastructure, especially water and sanitation, education, healthcare, transportation and energy.
Supporting time and labour-saving technology (for example, bicycles, fuel-efficient stoves, domestic solar power systems and agricultural processing equipment).
Promoting the equal distribution of unpaid care work, and avoiding reinforcing discriminatory social norms, through accompanying the provision of technology with messaging that reinforces its use by all household members.

Redistributing responsibility for care work more equitably

Through our projects and partnerships, we can help redistribute responsibility for care work more equitably between women and men, and boys and girls, and help shift responsibilities for unpaid care work from the household to the state and employers in many ways, such as by:

Addressing discriminatory social norms and stereotypes that perpetuate the unequal distribution of care, by engaging men and boys and other social actors at the household, community, business and national levels, including women's rights organizations, elders and religious leaders, and the media to challenge these norms and promote positive masculinity. Initiatives could use creative methods of communication (e.g. male role models, drama performances, father schools, media campaigns, etc.).
Encouraging care-related policies and services, including affordable, accessible, high quality daycare/early education for children, and care for older people and people with disabilities, provided by the state, employers, other private businesses, community organizations, cooperatives and others. Initiatives could look for creative daycare solutions (for example, vouchers, stipends, or mobile crèches to accompany temporary work programmes).
Fostering other gender-responsive, family-friendly work policies and practices by states and employers, such as pay equity, maternal and paternal leave, flexible working arrangements, provision of breastfeeding time/space, baby change facilities, and other forms of social protection.

Ensuring unpaid and paid care workers are represented and have a voice

Through our projects and partnerships, we can help ensure women, girls and caregivers are represented and have a voice in decision-making and design of care-related policies and programs that affect their lives in many ways, such as by:

Engaging unpaid and paid care workers' organizations and unions, and women's, children's, youth and other gender rights advocacy organizations, networks and movements.
Ensuring their participation in care-related policy-making fora and other decision-making processes at all levels.
Including girls' and youth organizations/networks, including young feminists, in decision-making and policy/program design.

Responding to the rights and needs of unpaid and paid care workers

Through our projects and partnerships, we can help respond to the rights and needs of unpaid and paid care workers in many ways, such as through:

Supporting legislation, policies and programs that respond to the needs and rights of unpaid and paid care workers, including migrant care workers (for example, extension of minimum wages, regulation of paid care work and other labour laws and services that promote safe working conditions, gender-responsive social protection such as child allowance systems, or pensions for women who spent their lives in unpaid or informal paid care work).
Supporting organizations advocating for the rights of domestic workers.
Developing and disseminating information, education and communication materials on the rights of migrant and other domestic workers.
Supporting training for paid care workers.

Implementing partners are encouraged to work simultaneously on more than one 'R', to maximize the impact and sustainability of planned interventions. It is also important to note that these entry points are interconnected. In particular, it is expected that work to address problematic social norms will support the delivery of each of the "5 Rs", as well as interact with a host of broader gender equality issues, such as access to resources and services, decision-making power at the household level, and gender-based violence.

The results frameworks of stand-alone care programmes will be expected to include one or more of these "Rs" at the intermediate outcomes level. The Government of Canada will work with implementing organizations to define results and co-create impactful programmes in a meaningful way.

Tips on including care issues in GBA+, project design and delivery

Examine how unpaid care work, and low quality, poorly paid care work, present barriers to the full enjoyment of human rights for women, girls, men and boys, in all their diversity.
Acknowledge caregivers as rights-holders and agents of change, versus simply project beneficiaries.
Consider the responsibilities of duty-bearers to address the inequities in care work. Recognize that while the State is the key duty-bearer, individuals (including men and boys), households, the private sector, communities, civil society and the media all have an important role to play in tackling inequalities with respect to care work.
Take an intersectional approach, assessing care-related inequities experienced by caregivers in all their diversity.
Integrate and reference time use data and other relevant qualitative and quantitative research and analysis on gender disparities in care work, and implications, where available.
Determine how the gender gap in unpaid care work will affect the ability of women and girls to participate in and benefit from your project. If women's or girls' care work could be a substantial barrier to the achievement of project results, consider a stand-alone component (at the intermediate outcome level) and adopt a multi-pronged approach to recognize, reduce and redistribute women's unpaid care among a variety of social actors.
Ensure the care analysis is grounded in local context. Learn from good practice nationally, regionally and globally, but remember that challenges, especially around social norms, are often very localized.
Recognize that while work that addresses social norms and drives policy change is complex, difficult and can take time to bear fruit, there may still be opportunities within shorter-term projects to take care work into account so women and girls can fully participate and to lay the foundations for longer-term change. This can include humanitarian efforts, where conflict sensitivity analysis will be important.
Analyze the local care economy, and explore opportunities to incentivize public and private provision of and investment in services and products that can serve the needs of employees, entrepreneurs and caregivers, and create decent work opportunities.
Identify concrete solutions/actions to address identified challenges and disparities with regards to unpaid and paid care work, informed by the results of the GBA+, drawing on the entry points and in accordance with the principles outlined in this guidance.
Support gender-sensitive data collection, knowledge generation and learning efforts on unpaid and paid care work to facilitate project improvements and contribute the evidence-base for programming and advocacy.
Listen to, learn from, work with, be led by, and support caregivers, particularly women and girls in all their diversity:
Listen to and learn from local, national and regional women's rights organizations, networks of children and youth including young feminists, and women and girls about their lived experience, needs, challenges and priorities when it comes to unpaid and paid care work.
Encourage meaningful engagement throughout the project life cycle and in decision-making on policy development to ensure that these needs and priorities are taken into account.
Support women's, children's and youth networks to lead social mobilization around unpaid and paid care work.

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