Discover the updated EU Care Atlas!

On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2024, we have updated our EU Care Atlas. Discover the new data available on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and Long-Term Care.

Within our joint project with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung titled “Making Europe #Care4Care!”, we developed the EU Care Atlas in 2022. This tool maps how care deficits directly relate to inequality and how these deficits urgently call for more supportive and needs-based care measures. It offers data on the three dimensions of the gender earnings gap on an EU average and in EU member states.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day in 2024, we have updated the Care Atlas. It focuses on the European Care Strategy, which we analyse in our Policy Study on the European Care Strategy. Thus, the Care Atlas 2.0. is based on the two main pillars of the strategy: Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), and Long-Term Care.

The disproportionate burden of unpaid care responsibilities and women’s “double shifts” of paid and unpaid work is reflected in the datasets on the gender gaps in time use on paid and unpaid work. 75% of unpaid and domestic care work in the EU is done by women. The unequal share in care responsibilities directly feeds into gender inequalities and solidifies them in the long term.

Concerning ECEC, parents (most often mothers) increasingly face a double burden in balancing paid work and caring responsibilities. We need an expansion of childcare services, accessible to all regardless of their socio-economic background, and a high intensity to enrolment. 

When it comes to Long-Term Care, we need concrete measures to ensure good and affordable quality care for all, including good working conditions for care workers, with a view to the future and demographic shifts both on the supply and demand side for long-term care. 

Browse through the updated EU Care Atlas and discover how care deficits directly feed into the gender overall earnings gap, perpetuating gender inequalities.

For more information please contact FEPS Head of Communication Ainara Bascuñana ainara.bascunana@feps-europe.eu