CARE4CARE POLICY BRIEF SERIES| 2/2022 THE STRUCTURE OF CARE WORK AND INEQUALITIES AMONG CARE WORKERS PROFESSOR JAYATI University of Massachusetts Amherst, Further articles by Prof. Jayati Ghosh in this series: → Defining care: conceptualisations and particularities → Recognising and rewarding care work: the role of public policies UNPAID CARE WORK It is widely accepted that unpaid care work is mostly – but not entirely – performed by women. Time-use sur­veys across both developed and developing countries have consistently found that women and girls account for around 70 percent of the time spent on unpaid care work in households. 1 Later studies have estimated the proportion to be as high as 76.2 percent. 2 Figure 1(based on time-use surveys in different coun­tries) reinforces this point, suggesting that in both de­veloped and developing countries, women spend a significantly longer time than men on direct care of household members as well as indirect care(here de­scribed as‘routine housework’). Several points emerge from these data. Total unpaid care activities(both di­rect and indirect) tend to vary with levels of per capita income: more time is spent by both men and women taken together in relatively poorer countries. It also de­pends upon the state of public provision, even in ad­vanced economies: total time spent on such unpaid work in Sweden(42 hours per week) was less than in the United States(60 hours per week). Both women and men tend to spend longer on indirect care activities than on direct care, and the time spent is substantially longer in developing countries, where there are fewer amenities and basic infrastructures available. Thus, to­tal time spent on indirect care activities in Mexico av­eraged 41.42 hours per week, compared to only 18.55 hours per week in South Korea. The gender differenc­es are marked, of course, but vary dramatically across countries. In Turkey, women spend more than 36 hours per week on unpaid care, nearly nine times the time spent by men. Women in Mexico spend even longer on unpaid care(nearly 39 hours per week) but this is four times the time spent by men. The lowest gap occurs in Sweden, where the time spent by both sexes is also substantially lower: women spend nearly 13 hours per week on unpaid direct and indirect care activities, while men spend just above 11 hours per week on average on such work. Clearly, levels of per capita income and infra­structure development, the extent of public provision and the gender construction of societies all play roles in determining both the extent and the distribution of unpaid care work. 1 UNDP. 1995. Human Development Report. New York; World Bank. 2012.“Gender Equality and Development,” World Development Report 2012. Washington DC: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank. 2 ILO. 2018. Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work. Geneva: ILO.