Statement by Ignacio Socias for the 40th anniversary of the European Federation of Parents and Carers at Home (Brescia, 14th April 2023).
There is a kind of work that is often invisible, forgotten and ignored – unpaid care. People who care for others – especially mothers — do a remarkable and important job; they deserve our support more than anyone else. Integrating unpaid care concerns into early childhood development policies and has the potential to positively reinforce both women’s and children’s rights.
I am happy and honored to join you in the observance of the 40th anniversary of the European Federation of Parents and Carers at Home, and I wish I could be there personally with you. Thanks very much for the invitation to speak and congratulations on your commendable efforts in pursuing your valuable mission.
As you know, some recent resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly say that “Families provide material and non-material care and support to its members, from children to older persons or those suffering from illness, sheltering them from hardship to the maximum possible extent.”
That is why families deserve protection. It is interesting to note that art. 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the call for the family’s protection “by society and the State”, the only place in the Declaration where the power of the state is invoked as a protective device in it.
This protection is vital for the ‘genetics’ of the family. The choice of founding a family and having children is private, but the consequences are public. To respect the human right to found a family, the rest of society and the rest of the world need to acknowledge and respect it because the whole society and the whole world benefits from it.
This protection is the fairest response to the commitment of families as they contribute to the future of society. The former suicidal young boy Seth Adam Smith wrote in his bestseller book when he understood it that “no one falls in love by choice, it is by chance. No one stays in love by chance, it is by work. And no one falls out of love by chance, it is by choice.”
And there is a kind of work that is often invisible, forgotten and ignored – unpaid care. People who care for others – especially mothers — do a remarkable and important job; they deserve our support more than anyone else.
Integrating unpaid care concerns into early childhood development policies and has the potential to positively reinforce both women’s and children’s rights. Addressing this challenge involves recognizing the value of unpaid care work concerning childcare, redistributing childcare responsibilities from women to men, and recognizing that responsibility for children goes beyond the immediate family to the collective community and the state.
But what we see is that millions of carers face big challenges every single day: many are living in poverty, many find it impossible to juggle work with caring responsibilities, and many struggle with their own physical and mental health; these challenges have been made even harder by the pandemic.
Supporting carers is a vital part of building a fairer society, championing social justice and achieving gender equality. Widespread reforms must be enacted to better protect and support Carers, and those they care for, and for the benefit of society.
It is intuitive and obvious that family caregiving is common. None of the institutions that support a good life would be possible without the unpaid work of caregivers — from schools to hospitals to basketball games and book fairs. Everyone benefits from the time and attention of a loved one in their lives. While the structures of families and the relationships within them vary widely, everyone was once a child in need of care, many of us need some help actively, and still more of us will one day need help as we age.
Unpaid care work also makes a substantial contribution to countries’ economies, as well as to individual and societal well-being. Care shouldn’t be seen as an obstacle, more as a need, an investment that produces great revenues at the personal and the social level.
In the United States, care provided by millions of unpaid family caregivers has been valued at $600 billion in 2021. The staggering figure is based on about 38 million caregivers providing an average of 18 hours of care per week for a total of 36 billion hours of care, at an average value of $16.59 per hour. For perspective, that amount is considerably more than the $433 billion spent by families nationwide in 2021 for all out-of-pocket health care costs.
However, unpaid care work remains mostly invisible, unrecognized and unaccounted for in decision-making. Women dedicate on average 3.2 times more time than men to unpaid care work: 4 hours and 25 minutes per day, against 1 hour and 23 minutes for men. Over the course of a year, this represents a total of 201 working days (on an eight-hour basis) for women compared with 63 working days for men.
It is more necessary than ever to keep in mind target 5.4 of the SDGs — “recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family.”
A recent report by Hays revealed that more than half of employees are willing to accept a lower-paid job in exchange for a better work-life balance. It found that a third of workers consider work-life balance to be the most “crucial consideration” when looking for a job. But that’s not all. An earlier report in September last year found that two-fifths of employees are attracted to their current role because of the work-life balance – which is five percentage points higher than those who cited salary. Interestingly, this research also found that, before the pandemic, employees valued pay over work-life balance.
I know your federation has been advocating for the recognition of unpaid caregiving work since its foundation, to raise the status, rights and value of this important work that benefits the whole of society. As you know, my federation recognizes the importance of addressing the issue of unpaid work and supports policies that promote a fair distribution of unpaid work between men and women, such as parental leave and flexible work arrangements. IFFD also supports programs that aim to recognize and value unpaid work, such as education and training programs that equip women with skills and knowledge to better balance paid and unpaid work and to advocate for their rights.
To prepare for and guide the discussion leading up to the 30th Anniversary of the International Year of the Family, IFFD has been leading the development of a Civil Society Declaration addressed to the United Nations and its Member States, and FEFAF has been actively involved in this important initiative. Our goal is to ensure that the celebration of this anniversary next year is meaningful and productive and that it highlights the critical role of families and the policies that foster social development. One crucial aspect of it is to increase recognition of the value of unpaid care work. I warmly invite you and your organization to join us in endorsing the declaration and participating in the various activities planned for the preparations and the celebration of this anniversary in 2024.
I finish by thanking you again for your invitation and wishing you a fruitful meeting. Thanks very much!
