The Real Economy: Reflections on Care, W20, and Beyond

October 29 marked the third annual International Day of Care and Support. It’s remarkable that we have only recognized and commemorated the importance of care for three years. And frankly, it is a sign of a 300-year failure by the discipline of economics. It’s time to spotlight a truth that has been invisible for too long. Humanity has always had an excess demand for care workers. Yet, supply and demand laws never work as we are told they should. Far from being the most valued individuals in our economy, care workers remain poorly paid and often receive no compensation at all. 

As someone who has had three stints as a US diplomat, I must confess that international conferences are not generally the place for honest discussions on this basic economic fallacy. And yet, this October, in South Africa, I attended meetings held by the W20, a group established 10 years ago to advise G20 governments on how to advance gender equality. While there, I participated in discussions around the vision we all need: the Real Economy. 

The so-called ‘invisible hand’ is in reality a web of social systems and gender norms that compel women to take on unpaid care burdens. The most modest estimates suggest that the value of unpaid care and domestic work accounts for as much as 9 percent of global GDP (USD 11 trillion). The value of all this unpaid labor worldwide far exceeds the value of other economic sectors—oil, agriculture, and even big tech pale in comparison. If only we could stop extracting and exploiting care work and instead ensure it is recognized, fairly distributed, and rewarded, we would all reap incredible gains. 

This year, the South African government is hosting meetings of the G20, a multilateral forum dedicated to solving the world’s most pressing economic and financial problems. The very theme they selected—Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability—couldn’t be timelier. In the face of increasing inequality and rising tides of populism, this call to collective purpose is exactly what we need. As the world’s wealthiest elites double down on practices that further exacerbate inequality, W20 leaders have offered the most transformative response yet, one that is perfectly captured in their communiqué and even more so in their catchphrase: Care is Capital. 

The W20 communiqué builds on commitments that were elevated in G20 meetings beginning in 2021 in the immediate aftermath of COVID-19. The pandemic laid bare the fragility of our care systems. Around the world, families struggled with the dramatic rise in the need to care for children, the sick, and the elderly. These burdens pulled people, especially women, out of the workforce, deepening existing inequalities. In response, world leaders finally began to put more of a premium on care. 

The path forward is clear, and the evidence on the benefits of a shift to a care economy is overwhelming. Advocates have made a compelling case for a 10 percent increase in care systems investments across economies, a goal that is modest, achievable, and high-impact, according to numerous studies. In 2023, in G20 countries alone, for example, 229 million women did not participate in the labor market due to unpaid care responsibilities—20 times more than the number of men (11 million) who reported being outside the labor force for the same reason, as reported by the ILO. The cost of inaction is staggering. 

It turns out the biggest hurdle isn’t the complexity of the topic; it’s mindset and a failure of imagination. In 2022, I joined advocates in Indonesia who convened on the sidelines of G20 meetings and produced a Roadmap for Care for the Asia-Pacific Region, compiling numerous examples of solutions in action. That moment cracked open a window of opportunity. In just three years, we’ve seen a remarkable shift.   

As ICRW recently commented, the August 2025 Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Women’s Ministerial gave policymakers an incredibly important new blueprint for the Real Economy—what they called The Care Society. The W20 Communique builds on the vision of the ECLAC declaration proposing a concrete Johannesburg goal: reducing the unpaid care gap by 35 percent.   

There is still work to be done to convince G20 leaders to adopt this target, and the time frame for doing so is limited. However, we are gaining new allies: 

•  A G20 Social Summit is scheduled for mid-November just before the Leaders’ Meeting. 

• South Africa has launched a new Children 20 group that will have the opportunity to influence world leaders.  

• Business 20 leaders co-hosted a dinner event with the W20 group, where they expressed support for unlocking women’s economic potential and reducing unpaid care burdens.  

Additionally, ICRW joined our allies at IDRC, the Global Alliance for Care, Center for Global Development, and others in convening a workshop to facilitate sharing between Latin American and African policymakers and stakeholders. This is an important step toward building consensus beyond the G20 and similar forums. 

What’s next? Our ICRW team had many takeaways from the discussions, including three that will immediately inform our work:  

• Many policymakers emphasized the need for groups like us to continue producing the evidence they need. Even if political will is the bigger hurdle, when the opportunity arises, our champions want to be well-positioned with a strong case for effective policy. There are many promising practices that require further investigation in this area, and we are examining topics ranging from return on investment to private enterprises to the cooperative economy to the digitization of care services.  

• Systems approaches are effective. Government representatives, civil society groups, and researchers agreed that breaking down siloes is critical and requires us to prioritize partnerships at all levels. We will maintain an active role in the coalitions that ensure stakeholders continue to strengthen coordination.  

• Our advocacy needs to be bolder than ever. As my colleague Chryspin Afifu put it, we must position care as a “growth thesis, not a cost center.” In other words, we need to embrace an economics of hope. It’s time to challenge the policymakers who continue to ignore the evidence and ask why they are hindering growth by refusing to invest in care. And it’s definitely time to thank the policymakers who are making the bold decisions we need.