Gender Equality Observatory
Social Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2024: the challenges of non-contributory social protection in advancing towards inclusive social development
The Chapter III. "Social protection, the care crisis and ageing" shows a persisten care crisis, with growing demand that far exceeds the number of people, services and infrastructure available to provide care, and high levels of structural inequality that disproportionately affect women, especially women who face multiple and interrelated forms of exclusion and discrimination, such as poor, rural, Indigenous and Afrodescendent women and those with disabilities, caught up in human mobility or living in territories in conflict, among others. The region faces an unresolved demand for childcare, simultaneously with a rising population aged 65 or over —especially the population aged 80 and over in the coming decades. It is therefore urgent to strengthen social protection systems through care-centred contributory and non-contributory policies, focused both on caregivers and those who need care throughout the entire life cycle, especially long-term care.