Federal Care Map of Argentina

Source:Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity, Mapa Federal del Cuidado [online] https://mapafederaldelcuidado.mingeneros.gob.ar/

Source:Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity, Mapa Federal del Cuidado [online] https://mapafederaldelcuidado.mingeneros.gob.ar/.

The potential of the care economy to achieving a fair transformation towards a new development lies, on the one hand, in the macroeconomic outcomes of investing in the care economy. Such investment increases economic efficiency, productivity, job creation –especially for women– and levels of tax revenue. On the other hand, investing in this sector leads to the improvement of the present and future abilities and well-being of society as a whole (ECLAC, 2022b; UN-Women and others, 2021a). A care society must highlight the multiplier effects of the care economy in terms of well-being and in energizing economies as a whole.

In that regard, it should be noted that in recent decades progress has been made towards developing methodologies that make it possible to quantify the economic value of domestic and care work. This is provided a figure of the contribution of this type of work, mainly carried out by women, to GDP. The limited male-centric conceptualization of GDP, framed by the production sector, has historically overlooked the contribution of care and domestic work to the economy as a whole, which has had significant consequences for women’s autonomy. When developed using an anthropocentric approach, GDP has primarily been presented to the world as an element of the provision of resources for production, without consideration of negative externalities and their effects on the sustainability of life. It is therefore essential to move towards measurements that move away from trade activity and provide space for the sustainability of life to play a leading role, while also being key input in the development policies that facilitate change to the existing development model (Vaca Trigo and Baron, 2022).

The economic valuation of unpaid domestic work is a powerful tool for making progress towards fulfilling the 2030 Agenda and making visible the multiplier effects of the care economy on improving well-being and boosting economies. The importance of these methodological efforts to expanding the concept of what is considered productive opens the door to recognition of women’s contribution to the sustainability of life, as well as highlighting their importance to supporting production chains. These activities interact with the understanding of the scope of demand for domestic and care work, which, in turn, helps to raise awareness and identify the infrastructure and service requirements essential to meeting the care needs of the population. These needs are met and, in economic terms, subsidized by unpaid work that in mainly carried out by women in their households.

Ten countries in Latin America have managed to assess the economic contribution of unpaid household work and five of them have designed satellite accounts for unpaid household work. According to some of the estimates made in the region, this type of work is valued at between 15.9% and 27.6% of GDP, of which approximately 74% is contributed by women (see table VI.2).

Table VI.2

Latin America (10 countries): economic assessment of unpaid household work (Percentages of GDP)

Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), on the basis of I. Vaca Trigo and C. Baron (2022), “Descentrar el producto interno bruto (PIB): bienestar, cuidados y tiempo”, Project Documents (LC/TS.2022/80), Santiago, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), 2022. Note: This table is based on the official information provided by countries, with the exception of Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala and Uruguay where the information is from assessment exercises, which, despite using official sources, have not been included as satellite accounts in the statistics of Systems of National Accounts.

While most of the measurements presented were made by the leading national accounting bodies of each country, on some occasions, these assessments have emerged from other institutions or in organized civil society. One such case is Chile, where the first estimate was made by ComunidadMujer in 2019 with information from the 2015 National Time-use Survey. Regarding methodology, unpaid work can be valued by considering the cost of input (the input method) or by assessing the product resulting from this work (the output method). The input method was used for all of the measurements made in the region. This method requires: (i) the quantification of unpaid work; and (ii) a salary to estimate the value of this work. Time-use surveys have been crucial for the first element. Greater detail about the input used in each of the Latin American valuation experiences is provided in the penultimate column of table VI.2. For the second element –the salary–, there are two options: considering the replacement cost, which involves attributing the salary paid to a person doing a similar activity in the market, or considering the opportunity cost, which involves attributing the possible salary that the person doing the unpaid work would receive in the market. The replacement cost method has been applied in the methodologies used in the 10 countries that have assessed unpaid work (Vaca Trigo and Baron, 2022). The choice of a replacement salary is another of the definitions to be taken into consideration when assigning a value to unpaid work, and this will depend on social and cultural factors, as well as each country’s level of economic development (Vaca Trigo and Baron, 2022). Argentina, Chile and Guatemala use the salary of a generalist worker (a person who can carry out any kind of household task), while Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay use the hybrid method, which combines generalist salaries with the salaries of a specialist worker (a person who has specific knowledge for each household task). Colombia, meanwhile, uses both methods and then performs a comparison.

It also becomes necessary to design projections that make it possible to calculate the impact on economic variables of creating comprehensive care systems. Understanding the effect on employment, tax revenue and gender and income inequality gaps enables areas of strength to be developed so as provide continuity to care policies, especially during changes of government or unfavourable economic conditions. At the same time, it is essential to monitor changes to the amount, level, composition and disbursement of budgetary allocations for care policies, and to disseminate information on those allocations. This will reveal what status they are afforded and, in parallel, ensure that these consignments are processed properly (ECLAC, 2022b).

As regards the effects of investment on care, there are various studies that have included countries in the region. The ILO (2019) report Care Work and Care Jobs for the Future of Decent Work provides an exploration of the capacity for job creation of investment in the care economy. The number of direct and indirect jobs that could be created by expanding education, health and social care services (including both short- and long-term care) was calculated for 45 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Peru. This report was based on prior research on investment in the care economy and developed it by detailing the costs of increasing care services and showing the potential to create decent employment. In turn, De Henau (2019), in a similar study for three countries, including Uruguay, focused on the investment in childcare that would be needed to cover all children under school age. Subsequently, and using the same methodology, UN-Women and others (2020 and 2021b) carried out similar studies on childcare and dependent older persons in Mexico. Lastly, De Henau (2022) estimated the cost of providing universal access childcare and care for permanently dependent persons, as well as of increasing parental leave in 82 countries, including 7 in Latin America.24 The main results and parameters of these studies are detailed in table VI.3.