Policy Toolkit 

The Toolkit puts forward policy examples, case studies, and implementation steps to help all stakeholders better support caregivers.

The Toolkit was informed by the foundational literature put forward by academics and international organizations, including APEC. In 2022, the APEC Policy Support Unit (PSU) published a policy brief Unpaid Care and Domestic Work: Counting the Costs to illuminate the status of unpaid care work in the region. The report found that unpaid care work in APEC economies is consistent with global trends: women globally spend an average of 4 hours and 32 minutes per day on unpaid care activities while men average 1 hour and 24 minutes, and women in APEC spend between 2.6 and 5.5 hours daily on unpaid care, consistently allotting three times the amount of time as men. The Toolkit seeks to build upon this resource, providing an overview of existing policies in the APEC region.

 To make the case for investing in the care economy, the Toolkit incorporates the “5R framework for decent care”, a model of action-oriented policy objectives developed by the ILO and adopted by other multilateral organizations, to guide the implementation of effective interventions for unpaid care. A sixth R, “Reframe”, which is focused on shifting away from norms that reinforce rigid gender roles, has been added at the suggestion of the APEC Embracing Carers Expert Advisory Group. The inclusion of “Reframe” grounds the “R” framework with an objective to promote positive gender socialization from an early age.

The intended audience of the Toolkit is those with the ability to affect the levers of change, creating an enabling and care-sensitive environment for unpaid carers. This audience includes health, gender, finance, and labor officials in APEC member economies; members of academia; the private sector; and other stakeholders. While the primary audience is policymakers, the Toolkit was developed with an inclusive lens to ensure that policies recognize the breadth of caregiving experiences.

 The Toolkit recognizes that no single policy will provide the solution to the demands placed on unpaid carers and encourages economies to take a holistic approach and recognize the diversity of caregiving experiences. Policies must work together to address harmful gender norms and gender-based discrimination, they must provide paths to career success for all workers, and they must create conditions that allow everyone to participate in both the labor force and caregiving. Policies that acknowledge the needs of all families, and all workers, will have greater impact on reaching gender equity.

 The drafting of the Toolkit was overseen by the U.S. Department of Labor in partnership with the U.S. Department of State Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI). Following the launch of APEC Embracing Carers, the Project Overseer and Project Secretariat convened a cross-sectoral Expert Advisory Group, which includes members of government, multilateral organizations, the private sector, civil society, and academia with representation across 15 APEC economies. Through three iterative workshops, the Expert Advisory Group lent their expertise in providing critical inputs to the drafting of the Toolkit. The development of the Toolkit would not have been possible without their support.