As a follow up to the G20 meeting held under the Presidency of Indonesia in 2022 on care economy, the ILO supported the initiative of the Indonesian government led by the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection to develop a road map on care economy. Within the final G20 resolution, Head of States concurred to continue to work in addressing the unequal distribution in paid and unpaid care in their respective countries.

The ILO supported the initial meeting conducted in Jakarta on 12 April to share the areas of expertise among relevant ministries and international development partners and to identify the opportunities for collaboration and contribution to the development of Road Map on Care Economy. In addition to the ministerial agencies, the meeting was also attended by various representatives of developmental agencies such as, among others, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, UNWomen, UNFPA, Oxfam and the Canadian Embassy for Indonesia who shared their current commitment and support to the issue of care economy.

Michiko Miyamoto, Country Director of the ILO in Indonesia, expressed the ILO’s support to the Government of Indonesia in developing the road map on care economy. She highlighted the challenges and opportunities of the care economy in terms of employment and income generation that would benefit the Indonesia’s economic growth.

The ILO’s latest research on care economy in Indonesia found that investing in universal childcare and long-term care services in the country will generate almost 10.4 million jobs by 2035, from which almost 4.3 million corresponds to direct jobs in childcare, almost 4.3 million direct jobs in long-term care and 1.7 million indirect jobs in non-care sectors.

Additionally, the research also revealed that the investment in a universal and comprehensive care policy package could reduce the gender gap in employment rates by 5.5 percentage point change. This would translate in an increase women’s employment rate from 49 per cent in 2019 to 56.8 per cent by 2035.

Lenny N. Rosalin, Deputy Minister on Gender Equality of the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection, highlighted the importance of care economy at both global and national levels. “Major global transformations are affecting the demand and supply of both paid and unpaid care work. If not adequately addressed, current deficits in care service provisions and its quality will create severe and unsustainable global care crisis and increase gender inequalities at work,” she said.

Thus, she added that to avoid the care crisis and deepened inequalities, there is an urgent need to view the development of policy packages on care economy as an investment. “Through this initial meeting, we need to create an alliance to collaborate in developing the long-term development plan for care economy.”

Meanwhile, Maliki as the Director of Population Planning and Social Security of the Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas) underscored the critical need to change the mindset that care economy issues were not merely women’s issues and care work were not also merely the responsibilities of women. “We have quite a broad policy on long-term plan for care economy to balance work participation of men and women. We, therefore, need to build a database to support planning-based on evidence and identify the right targets on care economy,” he stated.

During the interactive session, the participating agencies shared their experiences and lessons learnt on care economy. From the Indonesian ministerial agencies, the Ministry of Education shared its policy on early childhood development; while the Ministry of Manpower on efforts taken to eliminate the gender pay gap.

Information sharing from other developmental agencies included, among others, the World Bank which has invested in analysing the childcare services in 52 districts for the last two years and how these services have affected female labour force participation, company’s work performance and economic growth. Meanwhile, the Canadian Embassy for Indonesia highlighted the collaboration with the Government of Indonesia on gender responsive budgeting programme with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection.

“The key issue of care economy is that both women and men should not be penalized if they need to take a break from work to take care of their children or elderly parents. Thus, it is important to have the right policy, the right programme and the choice to work out of the house or stay at home to care when it is needed,” explained Joni Simpson, the ILO’s Gender Specialist.

The meeting was concluded with development plan of the Road Map started with the review and analysis of the existing policies in Indonesia related to care economy. This will be continued with a series of consultative meetings with relevant stakeholders in care economy to identify the areas of expertise of relevant stakeholders and good practices from other countries as well as study visits to childcare services at companies, villages and so forth.