Five Ways USAID Advances the Care Economy
We all need care from others to survive and thrive. Because care is such a fundamental part of the human experience, it’s actually the most valuable resource we can provide to our families, communities, and economies. Reliable and trustworthy caregiving fuels every type of economic activity—enabling everyone to participate in paid economic activities.
USAID is well-positioned to address that 40% of children—or nearly 350 million—lack access to quality child care, limiting the ability of millions of families to fully participate in the economy across the globe.
This disproportionately affects women, as they are generally shouldering a greater burden of unpaid care work. Closing this childcare gap would allow potentially hundreds of millions of women to engage in other forms of paid economic activity, an enormous net benefit to families and communities.
Investing in care systems also creates jobs and helps grow economies. The care workforce gap, if addressed, would create tens of millions more jobs.
Today, those roles are often part of the informal economy, unpaid or underpaid, and lacking the protections they need and deserve. Women who deliver paid health and care work face a significant gender pay gap, earning an average of 24% less than their male counterparts.
USAID is committed to ensuring that care workers—including community health workers (CHWs), childcare workers, social service workers, and others—have rights-respecting, dignified and gender-equitable work opportunities. These common sense investments reward families, communities, and national economies.
Learn about five key ways USAID is advancing the care economy.
A group of eight women pose for a photo, holding a large, unraveled sheet of paper and smiling together. Photo Credit: UNIGlobal Union.
Formalizing and improving job protections for care workers. In alignment with the United States’ Global Health Worker Initiative, USAID’s Together We Care activity, supported by USAID’s Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund, advocates for improved working conditions, equitable pay, and worker rights in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, and the Philippines.
This project addresses barriers that disproportionately impact the women who make up the majority of health and social sector workers as part of the care economy, and promotes fair and equitable employment with adequate labor standards and safeguards. From formalizing unpaid and community care work in the Dominican Republic, Philippines, and Colombia, to increasing workplace protections of private hospital workers in Ghana, this effort supports the creation of a resilient care workforce.
Cholpon Kydyrbaeva runs an Early Childhood Development center from her own home, welcoming young learners to have the best possible start in life in the southern Alay district of the Kyrgyz Republic. Photo Credit: Aga Khan Foundation.
Expanding families’ access to quality childcare. The World Bank initiative, Invest in Childcare—which USAID helped launch with a commitment of up to $50 million over five years—is making significant strides through strategic investments that address childcare needs and increase women’s economic opportunities. In Tanzania, a $9 million investment is establishing 200 community-based childcare centers. The development of a digital quality assurance system will ensure centers support children’s development and learning.
Through our bilateral funding, in Kyrgyz Republic and South Africa, USAID is creating opportunities for women entrepreneurs to run private early childhood centers. By the end of 2024, more than 1,000 center owners and managers in South Africa—like Portia who runs the Treasured-Offspring Daycare—will receive training and support to deliver high-quality programs that promote children’s development and learning outcomes.
Mentor mother Lindiwe Shongwe with adolescent client Lerato (middle left), and her caregivers’ daughter Sandisiwe (middle right) and mothers2mothers Case Co-ordinator Esther Mtsweni at Lerato’s home in Ehlanzeni, Mbombela, South Africa. mothers2mothers (m2m) South Africa.
Strengthening the quality and effectiveness of care service delivery for children and their caregivers. In 2023, USAID invested $101 million to help nearly 67,000 community care workers deliver high-quality, family-centered case management and comprehensive services.
USAID’s orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) program through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is providing caregivers, families, and social service systems with skills and resources to provide holistic care for children and adolescents impacted by HIV in 23 countries. OVC programs also help advance career opportunities for community-based care workers by facilitating their transition to serve as formally recognized and compensated members of country workforces.
Bama Athreya, deputy assistant administrator for the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Hub, speaking at CARE Work: Gaps and Opportunities, a strategic donor roundtable. Photo Credit: Ford Foundation.
Investing in global partnerships to elevate care work. As part of its implementation of the U.S. Government Strategy on Global Women’s Economic Security, USAID is investing in care infrastructure and elevating the value of domestic work. USAID, the Ford Foundation, the Care Fund, Fundacion Avina, and Co-Impact Foundation are partnering to advance and strengthen investments in the care economy and decent work for care workers worldwide.
Each participant has agreed to coordinate and align resource support toward approaches that strengthen collective representation for women care workers; improve their wages and working conditions, including safe and healthy workplaces; and advance gender equality in the care sector.
Baby Chann with foster mother Chheng Ry in the Siem Reap province of Cambodia, where Family Care First, a USAID-funded network of organizations, assists Cambodian children to live in safe, nurturing family-based care. Photo Credit: Family Care First.
Strengthening the social service workforce for foster care. USAID’s Children in Adversity programs invest in the social service workforce and family care providers, of which the majority are women, to advance safe, nurturing, and protective family care.
In Moldova, through the Changing the Way We Care private-public partnership, USAID supports professional parental assistants who provide foster care especially to newborns, children with disabilities, and teenage mothers.
USAID’s Family Care First program in Cambodia is strengthening the social service workforce and foster carers, such as foster mother Chheng Ry who provided emergency foster care to baby Chann with the ongoing support of community and government social service workers.
This story was originally published on October 29, 2024 on USAID’s Medium.
About the Author(s)
Bama Athreya
Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Hub and the Inclusive Development Hub
USAID’s Bureau for Inclusive Growth, Partnerships, and Innovation
Carmen Coles
Acting Deputy Assistant to the Administrator
USAID’s Bureau for Global Health
