Abstract
Paid and unpaid care provision underlies gender inequalities in the distribution of employment opportunities, incomes, and access to welfare. Three quarters of all care work in households is provided by women and two thirds of all care workers are women. This chapter draws on the contributions of Latin American feminist scholars to challenge the “care regime” concept proposing instead the “social organization of care” as an alternative (Faur, Organización social del cuidado infantil en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires: el rol de las instituciones públicas y privadas 2005–2008, 2009). It explores how a progressive care agenda has emerged and evolved at national, regional, and international levels, forged by coalitions of caregivers and care recipients and strongly supported by feminist movements (Esquivel, Care policies: Realizing their transformative potential. UNRISD, 2016). The focus is on the Latin American experience of “national care systems”. Following the Uruguayan experience, Latin American National Care Systems have been the preferred way to overcome care policies’ fragmentation and inequalities. By providing intra-state coordination and civil society participation mechanisms, some of these NCS have changed the relationship between state and citizens bringing about a reconfiguration of right holders and duty bearers. This chapter analyses the ways in which the NCS’s objective of contributing to gender equality moulds the design of care policies and ultimately whether they have been successful in supporting women’s social citizenship.