Enhancing Women’s Economic Participation in ASEAN through Investment in the Care Economy

Investing in the care economy offers Southeast Asian nations an opportunity to enhance women’s economic participation, thereby fostering more equitable growth and development. A recent data snapshot from UN Women, titled Women’s Economic Empowerment and the Care Economy in ASEAN, was released ahead of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Women Leaders’ Summit in Vientiane on August 23. This report supports the adoption of the new ASEAN Declaration on Strengthening the Care Economy and Resilience Towards the ASEAN Community Post-2025.

The snapshot highlights that women’s participation in the labor force across the region is consistently lower than that of men, partly due to the disproportionate share of care responsibilities that women bear within households. Additionally, many women who hold paid caregiving jobs are employed in the informal economy, where workers face heightened vulnerabilities.

The report identifies structural barriers to gender equality in the workplace and advocates for transforming care systems to create more opportunities for women and girls to participate fully in both economies and societies. It suggests that expanding care services, such as kindergartens, and improving workplace support for care through measures like parental leave could alleviate the time constraints on women and girls with caregiving responsibilities.

To improve the status of women workers in the care economy, the snapshot recommends expanding social protections and enhancing labor conditions, including wages, equal opportunities, and protection from discrimination, harassment, and violence. The report also emphasizes that efforts to transform care systems must include vulnerable groups, such as girls, single mothers, and elderly women, to ensure that no one is left behind.

Christine Arab, Regional Director of UN Women Asia and the Pacific underscored that gender data reveals the unequal burden of unpaid care and domestic work on women as one of the most significant obstacles to women’s economic empowerment. She noted that addressing these structural barriers and improving working conditions through gender-transformative policies and programs could create an environment that offers equal opportunities, empowers women, and promotes economic rights for everyone in ASEAN.

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