Breathe
By Aideé Zamorano
In 2023, October 29 was designated as the International Day of Caring, but what is caring?
Cleaning snot, taking care of fevers, taking to the doctor, buying groceries, giving medicine.
Today, it is time to pause and reflect on an invisible pillar that sustains the well-being of people and economies: care work. Despite its importance, care work remains an underexplored territory and a burden mostly for women around the world. According to INEGI figures, women contribute 72% of the economic value of unpaid care work, a situation that limits their opportunities and hinders their development in the labor, personal and even academic spheres.
Let's talk about care as a right: to care, to be cared for and to have space for self-care. Recognizing this is not only an act of justice; it is a step towards true equality. But this change will not happen with artificial intelligence, it will take the collaboration of the private, public and social sectors. In 2019, I designed the Mamá Godín Ranking, an instrument that measures and strengthens the commitment of workplaces on issues of co-responsibility for care.
What we have learned in these five years of evaluating more than 450 organizations and approving almost one million job openings is clear: when a company takes its commitment to care seriously, the change is real and measurable. It is no coincidence that, in those organizations that implemented our recommendations over five years, the participation of women increased by 26% and that of mothers by 113%. These results show the tangible benefit of including caregiving in the corporate DNA.
There is a global disconnect in the way workplaces approach care. Even in Europe, where I am working to expand the impact to Ibero-America, I have had to readjust my schedule, turn down projects and even ask for support at the university to fulfill my responsibilities. The problem is neither cultural nor geographic: it is a structural flaw that affects all caregivers, no matter where they are. I have already seen the dismissal of a colleague who was out of work for a week because her daughter was hospitalized and because she did not meet the sales targets, she was terminated.
So I ask, how long will companies continue to assume that care is a "personal problem"? How long will we continue to see superficial actions that large corporations boast about complying with the 2030 Agenda, while real commitments to co-responsibility for care remain unimplemented? If we do not address the issue with the seriousness it deserves, that same agenda will crash again in our face, (it already happened to us with the Millennium Goals) exhibiting how far we lack to advance towards true equality of opportunities. There is no labor justice, nor equal pay for work of equal value, if we do not share care among all sectors.
This International Day of Caring, I extend an invitation to companies seeking to be part of the change: the Mamá Godín 2025 Ranking opens its doors to all those organizations that want to leave aside promises and adopt a real commitment. May next year there be more companies willing to transform their work culture into a true model of co-responsibility for care, in Mexico and throughout Ibero-America.
Fewer people losing their jobs trying to keep their families alive.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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