Latin America’s care revolution drives gender equality and growth in 2025
By 2025, Latin America is experiencing a radical shift in the perception, as well as the organization of care work. Marginalized till now in what is traditionally called the domestic realm and done free of charge (mainly by women, obviously), care work has become a domain of national policy. Its importance in maintaining economic growth as well as gender equality in the region is being realized by governments in the region.
Such a change is not only rhetorical. States like Chile, Colombia, and Costa Rica are at the frontline of institutionalizing the care systems, which include offering the infrastructures to the society where caregiving roles are appreciated and redistributed. The situation is different in Chile: after extensive civic engagement by more than 12,000 citizens, (mainly women), the government created care services in more than 150 municipalities. The initiatives indicate that when caregiving is recognized as a social good, then it becomes publicly visible and becomes a well-known good.
Economic Contributions And Strategic Investment
The GDP Impact Of Care Work
Recent data from UN Women reveal the significant economic footprint of care systems. In Chile, care-related activities now contribute 25.6% of the national GDP, while Colombia registers a contribution of 19.6%. These figures challenge the traditional view that caregiving is a non-productive activity. By embedding care within the economic framework, nations not only correct a longstanding injustice but also unlock avenues for sustainable growth.
Public investment in caregiving infrastructure yields a multiplier effect. Wages for caregivers—who are predominantly women—translate into higher household incomes and local spending, strengthening community economies. This mechanism supports broader tax bases and creates feedback loops of productivity and consumption.
From Unpaid Work To Fiscal Agency
Redirecting funding into care work is both a social and economic strategy. María José Bravo, an advocate for women’s empowerment, emphasizes that investing in women’s organizations produces resilient, community-based networks that serve as lifelines in areas lacking institutional support. By turning informal caregiving into formal employment, countries reduce poverty, enhance productivity, and achieve greater social equity.
Gender Equality And Empowerment Through Care Reform
Reframing Gender Roles And Promoting Justice
At the heart of Latin America’s care revolution is a radical redefinition of gender roles. Legal recognition and remuneration for care work directly confront the patriarchal norm that has historically placed caregiving outside the bounds of economic value. Providing caregivers with rights, protections, and income enables greater autonomy and shifts societal perceptions of women’s contributions.
Marcela Vaeza of UN Women has described care as
“an investment for social justice, gender equality and sustainable development.”
This framing reflects a broader global consensus emerging in 2025: that equitable development must be built on foundations that recognize and remunerate essential social functions traditionally excluded from market logic.
Navigating Reform Within Capitalist Constraints
Activists like Zamorano González point out that care reforms must still navigate capitalist structures:
“While we change the system, let’s play the game and get our own means to have freedom.”
This pragmatism does not overlook the fact that even though the care revolution needs to be revolutionary, it has to fit into the current economic models. Increasing the role of women in economic involvement in these systems is going to improve political participation, civic participation, and the resilience of democracies.
Paid care work offers more than wages, it gives women voices so they can be heard in the development of public policy and the determination of social priorities.
Social Participation And Policy Innovation
Building Care Policy From The Ground Up
A hallmark of Latin America’s care revolution is its participatory foundation. In Chile, national dialogues and citizen assemblies informed the creation of a care model designed to meet real, localized needs. The involvement of thousands of women ensured the reforms were not top-down mandates but products of community input.
Decentralized implementation across municipalities also helps tailor services to diverse populations. This governance model enhances accountability and responsiveness, providing a template for inclusive policy design that could be adopted by other regions.
Legal Structures Supporting Care Workers
Alongside social dialogue, legislative progress has been essential. Several countries have revised labor laws to formally recognize caregiving as a protected profession. These reforms ensure that caregivers have access to minimum wage guarantees, health coverage, and pension contributions.
Such legal frameworks reduce labor segmentation based on gender and bring formerly invisible work into the national statistical and policy domain. They allow for systematic planning, budgeting, and monitoring, elevating care to a permanent fixture in development agendas.
Broader Developmental Context And Challenges
Varied Progress Across The Region
Despite strong gains in several countries, Latin America’s care revolution faces disparities. The 2025 AlTi Global Social Progress Index also shows that countries perform well in terms of access to health and education opportunities such as Costa Rica (75.24), Chile (72.85), and Panama (70.6), among others. Some countries however, are performing poorly in this aspect. Bolivia (50.06), Honduras (46.36) and Venezuela (51.45) have bad infrastructure and a deficit in the capacity of the state.
Such differences imply that the care reform is not being implemented evenly. Resource limited countries and vulnerable administrative frameworks thwart implementation in less-developed countries. Therefore, regional collaboration and specialized foreign aid are needed to fill these disparities and make them equitable.
Economic Uncertainty And Fiscal Pressures
The economic vision of the regions in the year 2025 and 2026 in the perspective of growth is also cool with the GDP expected to be 2.1 percent and 2.4 percent. The fiscal situation poses a problem with slow economic healing after past global shocks, such as inflation and supply and demand chain crises.
Social investments are subject to the austerity drive and temptations of the governments to cut down on them. However, there is another way out: the care economy is easier; it promotes consumption-led growth, it creates job opportunities, and it eliminates gender-based poverty. Under the fiscal constraints, policymakers can aim at inclusive growth by putting emphasis on care.
Latin America’s Model Within The Global Care Movement
The Latin-American region is an upcoming point of interest in the international care movement. Its experience shows that it is possible to promote an economic, social and gender justice agenda and at the same time change care. Lessons of the region on participatory design, decentralized delivery, and codification of law are important to the rest of the global regions aiming to modernize their social protection systems.
As Assal Rad, a human rights specialist, stated in 2025, empowering women with the help of care reform is the opportunity to empower them to learn how to rule their lives. Her words can be seen as a summary of a larger philosophical transition taking place in Latin America, the one that questions the structural inequalities by making care the focal point of social life.
This model has to be adjusted in order to be exported, yet the foundational principles, such as the need to empower the community, view equality between genders as human rather than just female, hold the state responsible, are unanimously valid. With the world having heated debates about the future of work and welfare, Latin American leadership provides inspiration and practical advice.
Latin America is in the midst of a care revolution, which still is developing, institutions are reorganized, economic policy is changing and gender relations as well. The question will be whether this can be maintained depending on further political will, distribution of resources and grassroots mobilization. However, the trend is obvious: putting care work at the center is no longer a suggestion to a better future- it is a practical way to a more just and inclusive future.
