In Mexico, the Push for a National Care System Is Gaining Momentum
In Mexico, the Push for a National Care System Is Gaining Momentum
As Mexico faces tariff threats and stagnant growth, "closing the workforce gap represents an economic opportunity," writes AS/COA's Carin Zissis in WPR.
At the heart of unpaid care work in Mexico lies a paradox: The labor sustains the economy, even as it creates barriers to women joining the workforce. All told, the value of uncompensated domestic labor in Mexico amounts to more than 26 percent of GDP, outpacing both the manufacturing sector and trade, according to the country’s statistics agency. Yet roughly 20 million Mexican women are not employed because they are busy providing that unpaid labor.
Now, a push to build a national care system seeks to recognize and rebalance that work by creating a network of services covering care for children, people with disabilities, the elderly—and the caretakers themselves. President Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first woman head of state, created a Women’s Secretariat that, among other tasks, is charged with building the system. And earlier this month, one of the country’s main opposition parties said it would introduce an initiative enshrining the right to care in the Constitution.
But the devil is in the details, and building a national care system will take time and resources. Can Mexico get there?
The effort to recognize “the right to care, to be cared for, and care for oneself” is not new in Latin America. From the 2007 Quito Consensus on through multiple regional women’s summits since then, it has been a focus of attention, and several Latin American countries have taken steps to develop care systems. In 2015, Uruguay became the first country in the region to make such a system law, while others—from Costa Rica to Colombia to Chile—are developing national systems with services ranging from early education programs and job training for people with disabilities, to day centers where the aging can get care and socialize.
