Facts

Women as Primary Caregiver
 

Globally, women continue to bear the primary responsibility for unpaid care work, regardless of a country’s level of development. On average, women dedicate nearly three times more hours to unpaid care work than men. In China, a time-use survey by the National Bureau of Statistics found that women spend 2.6 times more hours on unpaid care work than men, much of it dedicated to childcare. And this gender disparity continues into old age with older women shouldering a significant share of caregiving responsibilities, including caring for grandchildren. This vital contribution, often overlooked, makes older women an essential yet hidden pillar of childcare arrangements.

Childcare services

Approximately 37.4% of children under the age of three were enrolled in formal early childhood education and care settings across OECD countries in 2021. In contrast, China’s enrollment rate for children under three in formal childcare stood at only 5.5% in the same year, reflecting significant gaps in service accessibility. In the 2025 Government Work Report delivered during the "Two Sessions" in March 2025, the Chinese government underscored its commitment to enhancing childcare services as a strategic measure to address demographic challenges and facilitate sustainable social development, with  focus on increasing public childcare services to make quality care more accessible and affordable for families across the nation.

Women’s Labour Force Participation

Globally, the average female labour force participation rate is 47%, while the male rate stands at 72%.  In China, women’s labour force participation has historically been higher than the global average, reaching 68% in 2023, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report. However, this represents a decline from 79% in 1990. Despite this relatively higher participation rate, a persistent gender gap remains, with male labour force participation at 78% in 2023.

Extensive research highlights the negative impact of unpaid caregiving on women’s labour force participation. Ensuring access to affordable and high-quality childcare services is increasingly recognized as a critical solution for reducing the domestic care burden that is disproportionately shouldered by women. 

Social Benefits 

Transforming Gender norms

Inclusive childcare policies that redistribute caregiving responsibilities—not only between men and women but also between employers, public institutions, and private service providers—can help challenge traditional gender norms that position women as primary caregivers and men as breadwinners. 

Enhancing Women’s Economic Empowerment

Childcare needs are primarily met by women, often at the expense of their workforce participation, professional development, or career advancement. This in turn weakens their long-term economic security, reduces lifetime earnings, and limits financial independence. Enabling women to remain in or re-enter the labour force, transition to higher-quality jobs with opportunities for advancements, ensure continuity of health insurance and pension strengthens their economic empowerment. This not only benefits women by increasing their financial independence, but also benefits society by boosting national productivity and reducing women's reliance on social welfare as they enter old age. 

Supporting Women’s Reproductive Choices

Lack of high-quality affordable child care services can influence women’s fertility decisions—whether to have children, when to have children, and how many to have. Ensuring adequate childcare support reduces the caregiving burden on families, alleviates concerns about career disruptions, and supports women in achieving their desired fertility goals.

Ensuring Optimal Early Childhood Development

Formal childcare services provide professional childhood care, which is essential for children’s cognitive development and lifelong health. Investing in early childhood care yields high economic returns and contributes to long-term human capital development.

Driving Economic Development

Ensuring access to affordable and high-quality childcare services not only reduces the care burden that is disproportionately shouldered by women, but also enables millions of women to participate in the workforce, enhancing national productivity. Investing in care services also facilitates the socialization of domestic care work, fostering the development of a professionalized care sector that enhances service quality, creates jobs, and stimulates economic growth.

Policy Pathway

UNFPA China, in collaboration with the National Health Commission, conducted research to evaluate the necessity and feasibility of incorporating childcare services into China's national basic public social service system. This study analyzed both domestic and international childcare practices to provide evidence-based recommendations for policy development.

To promote women’s labour force participation, support women’s fertility aspirations, challenge harmful gender norms, and ensure optimal early childhood development, a comprehensive, multi-sectoral policy approach towards inclusive childcare services is needed, focusing on the following key dimensions:

• Ensuring Accessibility: While China has already established a foundational policy and regulatory framework for childcare services, further legislative efforts should integrate childcare for children under three into the basic public social service system. An inclusive childcare system should provide diverse options that cater to the varying needs of families and individuals across different socioeconomic backgrounds.
• Ensuring Affordability: Both families and childcare providers face financial constraints. Many families struggle to afford childcare, while providers (both public and private) often operate on narrow profit margins, limiting service availability and quality. Addressing this requires implementing regionally tailored fee structures and subsidy mechanisms to improve affordability; and establishing clear eligibility criteria, service standards, and financing frameworks to ensure sustainable funding and equitable access. 
• Ensuring Sustainability: While integrating childcare services into the basic public social service system may lead to increased  public expenditure pressures in the short-run, from a long-term perspective it can be managed by appropriately distributing childcare expenditures and responsibilities among the parties involved. This includes clearly defining the roles and financial contributions of national and subnational governments; aligning childcare policies with broader economic and social policies; and establishing balanced subsidy models that support both parents and service providers.
• Ensuring Quality: Low-quality services deter parents from enrolling their children in childcare. Service quality depends on the competence and professionalism of childcare providers. To enhance quality, policies should institute standardized training programs to ensure providers meet minimum competency levels; establish accreditation systems and quality benchmarks to promote high service standards; and strengthen monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to ensure continuous improvement, among other areas.

Today's childcare realities are vastly different from those of previous generations. With intensified work demands, evolving job structures, urbanization, changing family structures and  higher levels of education among women, the demand for professional childcare support has never been greater. Yet, many women continue to shoulder this responsibility alone, as reflected in time-use statistics.

The growing number of women leaving the workforce to provide childcare, underscores the unsustainable trade-offs that women face—between their career advancement, their reproductive aspirations and their children’s well-being. It is time to transform childcare policies and legislation to recognize and support the needs of China’s modern workforce, and accelerate the achievement of national development goals. 
 

Reference:

• World Bank. 2024. “Women, Business and the Law 2024.” Executive summary booklet. World Bank, Washington, DC. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0 IGO
• OECD Education at a Glance 2023： https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/education-at-a-glance-2023_e13bef6…;
• 对十三届全国人大四次会议第9638号建议的答复：http://www.nhc.gov.cn/wjw/jiany/202202/653d0e174aef422c8838689c8ce75031…
• ILOSTAT: https://rshiny.ilo.org/dataexplorer42/?lang=en&id=EAP_DWAP_SEX_AGE_RT_A…;
• World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2023： https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2024/dige…;