The paradox of care and a solution 

Europe is undergoing one of the most profound transformations of its recent history: the demographic winter. The birth rate is below replacement level in most European countries, the population is aging rapidly and there are fewer and fewer workers to support pension systems designed for a social reality that no longer exists. Some governments are looking for solutions and migration policy seems to be accepted by leaders, but they rarely ask themselves whether the problem is not to be found in the very economic and cultural architecture on which our societies have been built.

For decades we have designed the economy as if care were an inexhaustible resource. We have assumed that there would always be someone willing to raise children, care for the elderly, support the sick and care for dependents. However, that which sustains has never found a place in national accounts, in quotation systems, or in metrics of economic success. The market has constantly needed care, but has treated it as an invisible reality.

The GDP paradox

The consequence is a paradox that is difficult to ignore. Societies need children to guarantee their future, but economically and professionally penalize those who have them and raise them, mainly their mothers. People are needed to take care of the elderly, but at the same time the time dedicated to accompanying them is considered unproductive when it is a child who does it. Society needs families capable of sustaining stable ties and support networks, but the State, institutions and companies organize work as if these responsibilities did not exist.

Care is not a problem to be solved by the economy, but the precondition that makes any economy possible. Without people dedicated to others, there are no workers, consumers, taxpayers or citizens. However, those who perform this work within the family continue to bear economic, labor and social security costs that are rarely recognized.

Women occupy a central place in this reflection, although men are gradually entering this field. Over the last few decades, women have conquered practically all the educational, professional and economic spaces that were historically denied them. This progress is one of the great social transformations of our time. However, precisely because women have conquered these spaces, it is also necessary to recognize those who continue to sustain life through care, upbringing and family accompaniment.

Valuing motherhood

Recognizing this reality does not mean reducing motherhood to an economic function or confining women to a specific role. It means admitting that engendering, raising and sustaining a family generates a social value from which parents, the State and society as a whole benefit. In the same way, accompanying parents in old age, caring for the sick or being present when vulnerability arises is an indispensable contribution to social cohesion.

In fact, when such care is provided by outside professionals, it immediately appears in the GDP and has a market price. However, when it is performed by family members out of love, responsibility or commitment, it disappears from the statistics. The paradox is evident: that which is essential for the survival of society becomes invisible precisely because it is free of charge.

It is not a question of questioning the work of professional caregivers, whose contribution is valuable and necessary, but of recognizing that there are forms of care, presence and dedication that can hardly be completely replaced by an employment relationship. There are situations that demand more than technical competence: they require time, affection, availability and, on occasion, the giving of an important part of one's own life.

Let's talk about social justice

Protecting the care of family, relatives and the community is neither a concession nor a privilege.

If the system benefits from entire generations of people who dedicated years to raising children or caring for dependents, it is reasonable that it recognizes these contributions through appropriate fiscal, labor and pension mechanisms: pension systems that adequately account for the years dedicated to caregiving, labor markets compatible with non-linear family trajectories, recognition of the so-called “biographical debt” accumulated by those who sacrificed professional opportunities to support others, and an economic culture that no longer considers unproductive anything that does not generate immediate benefits.

Treating care in this way, from all points of view, including the economic one, is justice.

Europe's demographic winter is forcing us to rethink many certainties. Perhaps the solution lies not only in encouraging births or increasing public spending, but in recognizing what has always been silently sustaining our societies: if we want more children, more social cohesion and more welfare for our elderly, we must stop treating care as a marginal reality and start including the caregiver, also when it is the father, the mother, a child or a sibling, in the national accounts.

It is time to put care at the center and recognize that the wealth of a society is not only what appears on its balance sheets, but also what is born from the people who care for, accompany and sustain the lives of others.