The Australian Care Economy

Greetings All - 

Many of you are seeking examples of countries outside of the Nordic nations where serious efforts are being made to acknowledge and value the care economy.  This report, called "Counting on the Care Economy" from an Australian group called "Economic Security 4 Women" offers a great picture of the Australian care economy.

Here are just a few of their findings:

• In 2009-2010 the Australian care economy[1] was worth an estimated $762.5 billion.
• Paid care was worth $112.4 billion – 8.8 per cent of GDP – providing nearly 20 per cent of all paid employment
• Unpaid care was imputed at $650.1 billion – equivalent to 50.6 per cent of GDP –and 11.1 million FTE workers; 1.2 times the total Australian full time employed work force
• Women contributed 60 per cent of these 21.4 billion hours of unpaid care work undertaken across Australia in this period.

"The research highlights the primacy of women in the care economy and its significance to Australia. Women are bearing the bulk of the care load and it is having a significant negative impact on their incomes and retirement savings."

If you aren't up for studying the whole report - there's also a much shorter, high-level policy report to look at.

Enjoy!