Cherishing All Equally - Inequality and the Care Economy

As is now being realized, care work is essential to our individual and collective wellbeing. A long-overdue conversation needed to be had about the value we place on care work, which is disproportionately shouldered by women and plays a central role in the formation of inequality between women and men. Indeed, the structure of care provision or the distribution of caring responsibilities is perhaps the largest single factor in the continuation of gender inequalities. In this context, the FEPS-TASC report “Cherishing All Equally – Inequality and the Care Economy” analysed how care workers are faced with multiple inequalities, offering an EU-wide comparison whilst taking a closer look to the Irish case.

The intense debate based on the report brought together voices from politics, science and civil society, including Mari Huupponen, Robert Sweeney, Jennifer Carroll MacNeil and Orla O'Connor. It was emphasized that care work should not only be seen as a part of our economy and measured with economic parameters. Rather, care work should be acknowledged as value in itself and as the essential part of our society that it is: without it, society and the economy cannot function.

The conference was part of the joint FES-FEPS project “Feminist Europe – Does Europe care for Care?”. You will find the study below under “related files”. The event has been recorded and can be found here.

Contact: Agnes.Mach(at)fes-europe.eu