Every day, an estimated 16.4 billion hours are spent on unpaid care work internationally, with the overwhelmingly majority of these hours undertaken by women. This is the equivalent to the mother of all workforces: two billion people working eight hours a day, for zero pay.
Meanwhile, across the globe, the care infrastructure that underpins societies continues to rely on overwhelmingly feminised sectors, like nursing, early childhood education, teaching and aged care
So what does both paid and unpaid care work have to do with climate change?
First, the burden of unpaid care work that women already carry increases during times of crisis, as we saw during the pandemic and have seen in Australia following extreme weather events.
Second, paid care jobs are key to the future of work, and while they may not immediately come to mind as being “green jobs”, care work is key to supporting a green transition and the shift to a decarbonised economy.
And they should be recognised and funded as such.
This is the message a new report is taking to the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly and the UN Climate Ambition Summit this week, highlighting the need to ensure that women are included in the transition to a green economy, by considering the essential role of the female-dominated care sectors.
The new report on care and climate by Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), makes an urgent call to consider how investments in care can help to recognise and redistribute care work, set economies up for the future, reduce the burden of women and ultimately help in emissions reductions.
By reducing the care burden on women — and ensuring that the economy is set up to offer quality care infrastructure, AND well paid jobs within these care sectors, WECAN argues that we can reduce the burden of unpaid care work on women, boost women’s participation in paid employment and ultimately have more people contributing to the efforts required to support a green transition.
Increasing women’s workforce participation is critical to achieving a green transition, particularly when it comes to the fast-growing labour needs of the renewable energy sector. Currently, women account for around a third of roles in renewable energy worldwide, with demand for workers in this sector set to increase dramatically over the coming decade. For example, in Australia, engineering is already experiencing a critical worker shortage, with just 13.1 per cent of the sector female. Australia’s renewable energy sector is also expected to need thousands more construction workers every year from the year 2025, with construction already facing skill shortages and the sector being one of the most male-dominated in the country.
But through the significant shifts to renewable energy, Australia — like every country globally — must continue to service the care infrastructure, and address growing worker shortages. Australia’s top 10 most “in demand” professionals tell the story, where four of the top ten such jobs are are directly related to the caring economy.
Discussions on delivering a just, green transition are typically focused on addressing male-dominated industries, while women are far from being fairly represented in key decision-making bodies regarding how these significant shifts will play out, both at the international and individual country level. This means such decision-making misses the critical feminist analysis of climate decision-making, and can also fail to miss the impact of unpaid work on women and the essential and critical role of care work.
Too ofter the care sector is also forgotten when considering the jobs that will be key in the ‘future of work’, with the care piece missing from discussions on the best approaches and strategies for decarbonising the economy and failing to get significant airtime in domestic and international negotiations.
Drawing on four case studies of women leading on care work internationally, the report by Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) outlines how investing in care supports in building equitable and resilient societies.
It also highlights how pressure on the care sector will only grow with climate change, with the need for care increasing alongside things like heat stress, hunger, as well as the destruction caused by extreme weather events.
Among WECAN’s recommendations in their report are calls for funding to provide high-quality “green care jobs” — that is, care jobs that are secure and well paid. WECAN wants to see economies reoriented to be focused on wellbeing and care over economic growth, and recommends boosting investments into public infrastructure to acknowledge the needs of women and care workers directly.
Importantly, WECAN also calls for women “in all of their diversity” to be fully represented in decision-making processing and policy-making related to climate action, renewable energy and a just transition.
The reports comes as, separately, 200 scientists are urging the Albanese Government to limit new coal and gas sites, in a full-page ad published in the New York Times. Australia falls only behind Russia and Saudi Arabia when it comes to fossil fuel exports, according to the think tank behind the ad. The ad says Australia has a “special responsibility” to “stop fuelling the increase in global emissions.”
Key stats to note from this report:
Download the full report from WECAN here.
- Unpaid care and domestic work are estimated to be equivalent to between 10 and 39% of GDP, depending on the country
- 16.4 billion hours are spent on unpaid care work every day, according to a survey by the International Labour Organization on time use across 64 countries. At a global average of minimum hourly wage, this would amount to 9 per cent of global GDP, or USD 10.8 trillion dollars a year — three times the global tech industry
- Unpaid care contributes more to the economy in some countries than manufacturing, commerce and transport
- Paid care demand is expected to increase from 8.7% of global GDP in 2015, to 14.9% in 2030
- Male employment is often given higher priority than female employment during policymaking
- 38 million jobs are estimated to be needed in renewable energy worldwide by 2030, according to the ILO, a threefold increase from the current sector
- Renewable energy jobs generally pay better. The report shares a US example, where the workers earn an average USD$25 an hour in renewable energy, almost double the US$13 an hour for care jobs.
- Less than one third of those employed in the renewable sector worldwide are women — but this is still higher than the energy sector overall, at 22 per cent
- Women comprised just 35 per cent of delegates and 20 per cent of heads of delegations at COP27 in 2022
- Less than one third of 192 national energy frameworks across 137 countries include gender considerations.