Akiko’s Blog No. 28 "Urgent Action for Preventing Looming Global Care Crisis"
27 July 2018
Torrential rain disaster struck this nation, mainly around the western part, causing over 200 deaths from the end of last month to early this month. I offer my sincerest condolences, and I pray that people who are forced out of home may return to normal life as soon as possible. We are also hit by extreme heat waves throughout the country, with temperatures topping 40 degrees in some areas.
As for politics, it is all about the LDP presidential election coming up in September, as the ordinary Diet session ended on 22 July after passing the work style reform bills.
And now, the ILO Office for Japan has some announcements to make. We translated the executive summary of our annual report, World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2018, into Japanese.
We have also uploaded an interview of interns working for international organizations, as the latest article of the Future of Work interview series. Please click here.
Now, the topic this month is how to secure carers for the elderly people, which has become an urgent issue as Japanese society rapidly ages. The ILO released a new title, Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work, on 26 June.
This report presents the realities of care work, based on data from Japan and other countries, analysing issues and opportunities generated by incorporating the care economy into labour market analysis and policies. After shedding light on the present conditions of care work in the first chapter, “Care work and care jobs: What they are and why they matter”, it discusses the implications of unpaid care work on gender inequality in the world of work in Chapter 2, “Unpaid care work and gender inequalities at work”, and takes an overview of care policies in the world in the next chapter, “Care policies and unpaid care work”. Then, it presents the situation care workers face in Chapter 4, “Care workers and care employment”, and analyses the role the care economy will play in job creation in the future in Chapter 5, “Care jobs for a better future of work”. Finally, it proposes policies for better care work in Chapter 6, “A high road to care for the future of decent work”. The report also contains data drawn from various nations in Appendix, including overview of care-related international labour standards, working age population by household type, care dependency ratios, time spent in unpaid care work and paid work, workforce of unpaid carers and paid carers, and country-based costs of the expansion of care services.
The number of people in need of care was 2.1 billion (1.9 billion children under 15 and 0.2 billion older persons) in 2015. This figure is projected to reach 2.3 billion, increasing by 0.2 billion, half of which is older persons, by 2030. Data drawn from 64 countries (two-thirds of the world’s working age population) shows that the total number of hours spent in unpaid care work per day is 16.4 billion—equivalent of 2 billion people working eight hours per day in unpaid work. Based on the hourly minimum wage, this would amount to 11 trillion USD (purchasing power parity in 2011), which is equal to 9 % of global GDP. The value of unpaid care work in Japan is estimated to be 18.7 % of the national GDP.
Women perform 76.2 %, or over three-fourths, of the total hours spent in unpaid care work, more than three times as much as men do. Men have come to play a bigger role in unpaid care work in some countries including Japan in the past two decades; yet it is merely by seven minutes per day that the gender gap diminished on average in the 23 countries that provided the data.
Unpaid care work serves as a major barrier to women joining, remaining, and making further progress in the workforce; as of 2018, this is the case with 660 million women, while only with 41 million men. The report jointly published by the ILO and Gallup in 2017 showed that most women including those not in the labour force prefer to find paid employment, to which men agree, and that both women and men consider the biggest issues for women in paid employment as balancing work with family and lack of affordable care services.
Care workers are estimated at 381 million people in global total (249 million women and 132 million men). Most of them are women, often migrants, working under poor working conditions and for low wages in the informal economy.
The report claims that it is necessary to invest in the care economy twice as much to avert the looming global care crisis, pointing out that doubling investment in education, public health, and social work by 2030 can potentially create approximately 269 million new jobs.
It predicts that the care economy of 475 million jobs will be generated by 2030, if governments radically revise policies, address the issues of increase in care needs and the large gender gap in care work, and take proper actions for care work that satisfy all the care needs. (Based on the simulation model of 45 nations.) The total public and private expenditure on care services is estimated to be 18.4 trillion USD, 18.3 % of the total projected GDP of 45 nations; such investment will surely help achieve multiple targets of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals(*).
* SDG 3: good health and well-being, SDG 4: quality education, SDG 5: gender equality, and SDG 8: decent work and economic growth.
Torrential rain disaster struck this nation, mainly around the western part, causing over 200 deaths from the end of last month to early this month. I offer my sincerest condolences, and I pray that people who are forced out of home may return to normal life as soon as possible. We are also hit by extreme heat waves throughout the country, with temperatures topping 40 degrees in some areas.
As for politics, it is all about the LDP presidential election coming up in September, as the ordinary Diet session ended on 22 July after passing the work style reform bills.
And now, the ILO Office for Japan has some announcements to make. We translated the executive summary of our annual report, World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2018, into Japanese.
We have also uploaded an interview of interns working for international organizations, as the latest article of the Future of Work interview series. Please click here.
Now, the topic this month is how to secure carers for the elderly people, which has become an urgent issue as Japanese society rapidly ages. The ILO released a new title, Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work, on 26 June.
This report presents the realities of care work, based on data from Japan and other countries, analysing issues and opportunities generated by incorporating the care economy into labour market analysis and policies. After shedding light on the present conditions of care work in the first chapter, “Care work and care jobs: What they are and why they matter”, it discusses the implications of unpaid care work on gender inequality in the world of work in Chapter 2, “Unpaid care work and gender inequalities at work”, and takes an overview of care policies in the world in the next chapter, “Care policies and unpaid care work”. Then, it presents the situation care workers face in Chapter 4, “Care workers and care employment”, and analyses the role the care economy will play in job creation in the future in Chapter 5, “Care jobs for a better future of work”. Finally, it proposes policies for better care work in Chapter 6, “A high road to care for the future of decent work”. The report also contains data drawn from various nations in Appendix, including overview of care-related international labour standards, working age population by household type, care dependency ratios, time spent in unpaid care work and paid work, workforce of unpaid carers and paid carers, and country-based costs of the expansion of care services.
The number of people in need of care was 2.1 billion (1.9 billion children under 15 and 0.2 billion older persons) in 2015. This figure is projected to reach 2.3 billion, increasing by 0.2 billion, half of which is older persons, by 2030. Data drawn from 64 countries (two-thirds of the world’s working age population) shows that the total number of hours spent in unpaid care work per day is 16.4 billion—equivalent of 2 billion people working eight hours per day in unpaid work. Based on the hourly minimum wage, this would amount to 11 trillion USD (purchasing power parity in 2011), which is equal to 9 % of global GDP. The value of unpaid care work in Japan is estimated to be 18.7 % of the national GDP.
Women perform 76.2 %, or over three-fourths, of the total hours spent in unpaid care work, more than three times as much as men do. Men have come to play a bigger role in unpaid care work in some countries including Japan in the past two decades; yet it is merely by seven minutes per day that the gender gap diminished on average in the 23 countries that provided the data.
Unpaid care work serves as a major barrier to women joining, remaining, and making further progress in the workforce; as of 2018, this is the case with 660 million women, while only with 41 million men. The report jointly published by the ILO and Gallup in 2017 showed that most women including those not in the labour force prefer to find paid employment, to which men agree, and that both women and men consider the biggest issues for women in paid employment as balancing work with family and lack of affordable care services.
Care workers are estimated at 381 million people in global total (249 million women and 132 million men). Most of them are women, often migrants, working under poor working conditions and for low wages in the informal economy.
The report claims that it is necessary to invest in the care economy twice as much to avert the looming global care crisis, pointing out that doubling investment in education, public health, and social work by 2030 can potentially create approximately 269 million new jobs.
It predicts that the care economy of 475 million jobs will be generated by 2030, if governments radically revise policies, address the issues of increase in care needs and the large gender gap in care work, and take proper actions for care work that satisfy all the care needs. (Based on the simulation model of 45 nations.) The total public and private expenditure on care services is estimated to be 18.4 trillion USD, 18.3 % of the total projected GDP of 45 nations; such investment will surely help achieve multiple targets of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals(*).
* SDG 3: good health and well-being, SDG 4: quality education, SDG 5: gender equality, and SDG 8: decent work and economic growth.