What is Unpaid Care and Domestic Work?
"Unpaid care and domestic work" encompasses a wide range of non-market unpaid activities performed in households, including direct care for dependents such as children, sick family members, older persons, and persons with a disability, as well as indirect care such as cooking food provisioning, cleaning, collecting fuelwood and water. The provision of care work is the foundation of human life and has an intrinsic value being the precondition for a thriving and sustainable economy with a productive workforce.
The disproportionate share of unpaid care work on women and girls in Asia and the Pacific - who perform two to five times more unpaid care work than men - continues to limit their economic and social empowerment. This unequal distribution reinforces gender disparities in income, leadership, career advancement, and access to decision-making. Addressing this imbalance through policies that recognize, reduce, and redistribute unpaid care and domestic work is vital to achieving gender equality and unlocking women’s full economic potential.
Our Work on Unpaid Care Work
ESCAP has established itself as a regional leader in promoting inclusive, resilient and sustainable care systems, through normative frameworks, country-level support, and regional collaboration. Our work aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 5 which focuses on “achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls”, with a particular emphasis on target 5.4, to “recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate”.
Over the past years, ESCAP has worked with governments in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, Thailand, and Uzbekistan to develop and implement care-sensitive policies. These efforts are grounded in ESCAP’s Model Framework for Action on the Care Economy, developed with the Institute of Development Studies, which serves as the foundation for national policy development and capacity-building across the region.
The framework offers a comprehensive approach to understanding and addressing the care economy. It emphasizes the need for a holistic set of policies across four key categories: care infrastructure, care-related social protection, care services, and employment-related care policies. Beyond these policy areas, the MFA highlights three additional components essential for designing effective, gender-responsive care policies: the political economy of care, normative principles, and the levers of change. Together, these elements provide a clear roadmap for governments and stakeholders to develop care-sensitive and gender-responsive care policies.
A core achievement of ESCAP’s technical cooperation support has been the successful support to national care policy initiatives. Cambodia and the Philippines are finalizing their National Action Plans on the Care Economy, incorporating policy entry points identified through ESCAP-supported consultations and aligned with gender-responsive budgeting frameworks. In Indonesia, ESCAP supported a national consultation that informed the adoption implementation of a Roadmap on the Care Economy (2025–2045). In the Philippines, subnational consultations led to the adoption of a provincial-level Care Ordinance in Quinapondan, Eastern Samar, with interest from 23 other local governments to replicate the initiative. ESCAP also contributed technical expertise to China’s first care economy policy roundtable in collaboration with Peking University.
At the subregional level, ESCAP played a key role in supporting the ASEAN Declaration on Strengthening the Care Economy and Fostering Resilience Towards the Post-2025 ASEAN Community, including drafting technical inputs, facilitating consultations, and organizing multistakeholder workshops and forums. Through ESCAP’s engagement, a structured and holistic approach to care economy issues are now more prominently featured in ASEAN’s gender equality agenda and linked to broader recovery, resilience, and economic inclusion efforts.
Cambodia
ESCAP’s engagement in Cambodia reflects a sustained partnership with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) to strengthen the evidence base, policy dialogue, and institutional capacity on the care economy and women’s economic empowerment.
This collaboration began with a national study on the care economy in Cambodia, conducted jointly by ESCAP, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), and MoWA. The findings, presented at a National Public Forum in Phnom Penh in 2022, helped elevate national awareness of unpaid care and domestic work and its implications for women’s labour force participation and economic empowerment.
Building on this analytical work, ESCAP and MoWA have implemented a series of capacity-building initiatives and policy dialogues. In August 2023, ESCAP delivered a capacity-building workshop for over 30 government officials to strengthen technical understanding of the care economy and share good practices. This was followed by a three-day National Consultation on valuing and investing in unpaid care and domestic work, which brought together line ministries and stakeholders to identify priority policy actions and opportunities for cross-sectoral collaboration. During this process, ESCAP introduced its Model Framework for Action on the Care Economy and conducted bilateral consultations with ministries to support the identification of policy entry points.
These efforts have contributed to the development of Cambodia’s National Care Economy Framework and Action Plan, which promotes a whole-of-government approach to: (1) Strengthen coordination across sectors; (2) Promote investment in care services and enabling infrastructure; (3) Advance policies to recognize, reduce and redistribute unpaid care and domestic work.
At the global level, Cambodia has also contributed to knowledge exchange and South–South cooperation, including through the CSW69 side event Transforming Care Systems for a Changing World: A South-South Dialogue, co-organized by ESCAP and MoWA.
Complementing its policy work, Cambodia is advancing initiatives to strengthen women’s entrepreneurship ecosystems. With ESCAP’s technical support, the Women’s Economic and Entrepreneurship Development Centre (WEE-DC) was established and inaugurated in Phnom Penh in December 2025. The Centre aims to enhance women entrepreneurs’ skills, improve access to finance and markets, and support the development of care-responsive business models through multi-stakeholder collaboration.
Building on these achievements, the High-Level Dialogue on Care and Entrepreneurship in Cambodia, to be held on 9 June 2026 in Phnom Penh, will mark a key milestone. The Dialogue will officially launch Cambodia’s National Care Economy Framework and Action Plan and provide a platform to:
- Present national policy priorities on the care economy and women’s entrepreneurship
- Promote integrated approaches linking care systems and inclusive entrepreneurship ecosystems
- Facilitate dialogue on financing, implementation and coordination mechanisms
- Strengthen partnerships among government, development partners, the private sector and civil society
The Dialogue highlights the mutually reinforcing relationship between the care economy and women’s entrepreneurship, recognizing that investments in care services expand women’s economic opportunities, while entrepreneurship can drive innovation and job creation within the care sector.
Overall, ESCAP’s integrated approach in Cambodia - combining research, policy support, capacity development and partnerships - has helped position the care economy as a strategic national priority, contributing to inclusive, gender-responsive and sustainable development.
The Philippines
in the Philippines © ESCAP
In the Philippines, ESCAP partnered with Oxfam to support advocacy and capacity building efforts of relevant line ministries, conducting online training sessions. In addition, ESCAP collaborated with the Philippines Commission on Women (PCW), to conduct a national study on care economy concerns, and co-organized a CSW65 side event in 2021 bringing further attention to unpaid care work. ESCAP was also invited to present the study at a National Statistical Conference in the Philippines in October 2022. In September 2023, the Philippine National Consultation on valuing and investing in unpaid care and domestic work was jointly convened by PCW, ESCAP, and Oxfam Pilipinas, with support from the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement. Participants, including both governmental and non-governmental entities, assessed current conditions and identified potential areas for joint interventions aimed at valuing and investing in the care economy in the Philippines, promoting women’s economic empowerment and participation in the labour force, and advancing the collection of gender data. The outcome of this national consultation resulted in a set of recommendations aligned with the discussions, guiding future actions for accelerated action in these areas.
As a follow-up to the Philippines national consultation, ESCAP conducted a subnational consultation in Ormoc City in the Philippines, jointly with the National Economic Development Authority-Region 8, the Philippine Commission on Women, the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement and Oxfam Pilipinas. The consultation served as a critical platform for exchanging knowledge and ideas, with a particular focus on:
- Data and Evidence Building in Care
- Care and Climate Nexus
- Local Policies to Recognize, Reduce and Redistribute Unpaid Care and Domestic Work.
Eastern Samar
The outcome of the national consultation was a set of recommendations on areas for accelerated action, in line with the consultation discussions. These recommendations contributed to the drafting of a provincial level care ordinance which passed its third reading at the provincial level general assembly and was set into local legislation in early 2024.
China
The Roundtable on China Care Economy Policy Actions and International Cooperation was jointly convened by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Center for International Knowledge on Development (CIKD). The roundtable served as a critical platform to deliberate on the pressing issues surrounding the care economy, especially the disproportionate care burden for women, in the contexts of current and emerging megatrends such as population ageing and the shrinking labour force. It also aimed to solicit inputs on how these issues could be addressed by more proactive policy solutions in China that could contribute to more inclusive, just and sustainable growth.
The roundtable was part of the project “Advancing gender equality through recognizing, reducing and redistributing unpaid care work of women and girls in Asia and the Pacific”, implemented by ESCAP’s Social Development Division under the China-ESCAP Cooperation Programme. This project aimed to provide technical support to governments in four Asia-Pacific countries (i.e., Cambodia, China, Indonesia and the Philippines) to design and implement policy initiatives at the national/subnational level that recognize, reduce and redistribute the unpaid care and domestic work responsibilities of women and girls and promote the enhanced participation of women in the labour force. Such policy initiatives may include the development and scaling up of national investment in care infrastructure, care services, gender-responsive social protection measures, as well as employment-related care policies.
Lao PDR
The Lao PDR National Consultation on Valuing Unpaid Care and Domestic Work and Investing in the Care Economy was jointly convened by the Lao Women's Union (LWU), the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and Oxfam in Laos.
and Investing in the Care Economy
The objective of the national consultation was to serve as an interactive forum for key stakeholders to examine ways to accelerate progress and adopt care policies at the national level. It offered all stakeholders an opportunity to take stock of, as well as consider, possible areas for joint interventions to value and invest in the care economy in Lao PDR; promote women’s economic empowerment and participation in the labor force; and further advance the availability of timely, relevant, and comprehensive sex-disaggregated data and gender-related information.
The consultation served as a critical platform for exchanging knowledge and ideas, with a particular focus on:
- Increasing awareness and understanding of the importance of the care economy in Lao PDR.
- Exploring innovative approaches, best practices, and successful models from national and international contexts of care policy ecosystems that address gendered inequalities in the care economy.
- Fostering partnerships across government ministries and departments to collaborate towards a comprehensive and holistic ‘whole of government’ approach to recognize, reduce, and redistribute paid and unpaid care domestic work.
- Identifying entry points for policy change (social, economic, and legislative aspects) to utilize for a concerted and coordinated implementation of care-focused policy measures, integrating both short and long-term considerations.
The outcome of the national consultation resulted in the identification of entry points for policy action on the care economy in Lao PDR.
In addition, on 14 October 2024, the Lao Women’s Union, ESCAP and the Asian Development Bank jointly convened the National Dissemination workshop on the ASEAN Declaration on Strengthening Care Economy and Resilience Towards ASEAN Community Post-2025, a declaration adopted under the leadership of the Lao Women’s Union. The objective of the workshop was to chart the path forward to establishing a national road map and action plan in Lao PDR. The four policy categories of the ESCAP’s Model Framework for Action on the Care Economy formed the basis for the session design.
Recently, on 2-3 June 2025, the Lao Women’s Union, UNESCAP, and Oxfam jointly organized a national consultation to refine the draft monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework for the Lao Women’s Development Plan 2026-2030 and strengthen alignment between the Lao Women’s Development Plan and the 10th Five-Year National Socio-Economic Development Plan. The meeting brought together representatives from the Lao Women’s Union Headquarters, the Ministry of Planning, and other relevant technical departments and committees.
The consultation served as a critical platform to support the integration of care-related economic priorities into national development planning. The Lao Women’s Union has taken a leading role in elevating the care economy within policy discussions - recognizing its contribution to broader socioeconomic transformation. These efforts are also closely linked to the ASEAN Declaration on Strengthening the Care Economy and Enhancing the Resilience of ASEAN Communities Beyond 2025, which the Lao Women’s Union has actively championed at the national level.
With support from UNESCAP and Oxfam - who have provided technical and financial assistance since 2023 - the consultation continued a series of policy dialogues focused on promoting the care economy. Participants worked to ensure the Women’s Development Plan includes clear indicators and integrated programming that reflect national priorities and the evolving care needs of Lao society.
Indonesia
The Indonesia National Consultation on Valuing and Investing in the Care Economy: Charting the Way Forward in Indonesia was jointly convened on 17 September 2024 by the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection (MoWECP) of Indonesia, ESCAP, the World Bank and UN Women. The consultation served as a critical and interactive platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue to discuss priorities and strategies on the best ways forward on the Indonesian Care Economy Roadmap and National Action Plan, including within the context of the development priorities of the Government of Indonesia, as stipulated in its Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) for 2025-2029. During the consultation, participants underscored the importance of enhancing coordination among relevant ministries to streamline efforts and ensure the successful implementation of the care economy roadmap. They also discussed the need for sufficient budget allocation to support the expansion and sustainability of care services, while ensuring financial backing for care-related programs and infrastructure. Additionally, participants highlighted that strengthening data collection is crucial for developing evidence-based policies.
Timor-Leste
The Kick-off Workshop on Valuing and Investing in the Care Economy was organized on 26 June 2025 by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the Secretary of State for Equality (SEI) and UN Women. The workshop brought together key stakeholders to:
• Introduce the care economy in the context of Timor-Leste’s development and gender equality goals;
• Launch the Timor-Leste Working Group on Care to strengthen coordination and drive collective action;
• Present draft online induction modules and preliminary findings from a national case study on unpaid care and domestic work and gather feedback to refine these tools and ensure contextual relevance.
The outcomes and insights from the Kickoff Workshop are directly informing the upcoming National Consultation in September, which will build on this foundation to deepen multi-stakeholder engagement, explore sector-specific policy entry points, and foster coordinated action across government and civil society. Together, these efforts aim to support the development of a more inclusive and responsive care economy in Timor-Leste.
The Timor-Leste National Consultation on Valuing and Investing in the Care Economy will be jointly convened by the Secretary of State for Equality (SEI) of Timor-Leste and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
Building on the outcomes of the Kickoff Workshop held on 26 June 2025, this consultation marks a key milestone in advancing national dialogue, coordination, and action on the care economy. It brings together a broad coalition of stakeholders, from government ministries and civil society to the private sector, development partners, and the UN Country Team, to explore gender-responsive policy solutions that recognize, reduce, and redistribute unpaid care and domestic work.
The Consultation will serve as an inclusive platform to:
- Strengthen national awareness and shared understanding of the care economy, its significance for sustainable development, gender equality, and women’s economic empowerment in Timor-Leste;
- Explore practical policy entry points across key sectors to recognize, reduce, and redistribute unpaid care and domestic work and address structural barriers to gender equality;
- Apply the Model Framework for Policy Action on Care Economy (MFA) to support the identification of care policy gaps and development of gender-transformative, evidence-based interventions;
- Build strategic partnerships and foster coordinated action among government, civil society, and development partners to support long-term investment in care services, infrastructure, and protections aligned with national development goals and the Maubisse Declaration (2023-2028).
Structured over three days, the consultation will feature high-level sessions, bilateral discussions with key ministries, and interactive workshops to map synergies, identify policy gaps, and shape a shared roadmap for action. The outcomes resulted in the identification of entry points for policy action on the care economy in Timor-Leste.
ASEAN
Vientiane 2023
ESCAP leverages its influential convening power to unite stakeholders and foster regional cooperation to address the care economy. In July 2023, ESCAP, in collaboration with the ASEAN Committee on Women (ACW), through Lao PDR as incumbent ACW Chair, Oxfam, and the ASEAN Secretariat, convened the Regional Forum on Care Work in ASEAN Countries. The forum yielded a set of recommendations that identify areas for accelerated action to value and invest in unpaid care and domestic work. These recommendations were then shared for the consideration of Indonesia as the 2023 ASEAN Chair and Lao PDR as the 2024 ASEAN Chair. Following the forum, ESCAP also continued the strengthening of targeted projects on the care economy with governmental institutions in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Lao PDR, supporting capacity-building efforts of key stakeholders and the development of national frameworks for action.
Please find videos of the Regional Forum on Care Work in ASEAN Countries here.
The ASEAN Declaration on Strengthening the Care Economy and Fostering Resilience Towards the Post-2025 ASEAN Community
The 3rd ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit was convened by the Government of Lao PDR on 23 August 2024 under the theme “Strengthening Care Economy and Resilience Towards ASEAN Community Post-2025”. ESCAP, along with various development partners, hosted a series of multistakeholder capacity building events and learning exchanges during pre-Summit events held on 21-22 August that delved deeper into the Summit’s theme. At the Summit, the ASEAN Committee on Women endorsed the “ASEAN Declaration on Strengthening the Care Economy and Fostering Resilience Towards the Post-2025 ASEAN Community”. The Declaration was later adopted by ASEAN Member States at the ASEAN Summit in October 2024. The Declaration aligns with the four policy categories of ESCAP’s Model Framework for Action on the Care Economy and calls on governments to implement a comprehensive set of policies that address care infrastructure, social protection, care services, and employment.
The CSW69 side event “Care at the Core: ASEAN Leadership in Advancing Gender Equality through the Care Economy”
On 13 March 2025, the CSW69 side event “Care at the Core: ASEAN Leadership in Advancing Gender Equality through the Care Economy” was organized by the Lao Women’s Union, the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development (KPWKM) of Malaysia, ASEAN, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and Oxfam. This event provided a platform to showcase ASEAN’s leadership, foster South-South cooperation, and advance interregional learning on care economy solutions. CSW69, marking 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, served as a pivotal moment to highlight ASEAN’s contributions in achieving SDG 5.4 and driving transformative change in the care economy.
Please find more information about the event here.
Research and advocacy
ESCAP has been at the forefront of research and knowledge production related to the care economy and has produced a suite of strategic knowledge products and toolkits.
ESCAP has also convened and contributed to major regional and global platforms to elevate the care agenda. At CSW69, ESCAP organized the side event Care at the Core, where ASEAN leaders—including from Lao PDR and Timor-Leste—shared national progress. Another high-level side event, Transforming Care Systems for a Changing World: A South-South Dialogue, amplified regional voices and built momentum for global collaboration. At the 2024 Asia-Pacific Care Champions event, 30 champions were recognized for their work in care innovation, policy, and advocacy, underscoring the transformative potential of multistakeholder leadership. ESCAP’s work has catalyzed new partnerships, including with Oxfam in Asia, the Global Alliance for Care, and the ASEAN Committee on Women. ESCAP also commemorates the International Day of Care and Support, and regularly releases blogs and social media features to spotlight progress, share stories, and inspire action.
Through sustained advocacy, tailored technical support, high-level policy engagement, and a robust suite of knowledge products, ESCAP remains at the forefront of efforts to value and invest in the care economy - laying the foundation for gender-equal, inclusive, and sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific.
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