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The logo of the Equal Opportunities Office at TU Dortmund University
Text: Up to Date, Queer and Feminist Calendar © Borgschulze​/​TU Dortmund
FEBRUARY 29 / MARCH 01

Equal Care Day

Equal Care Day draws attention to the gender care gap and the structural disadvantages faced by female care workers. The gap describes the gender-specific unequal distribution of care work.

The origins of Equal Care Day

The Equal Care Day is backed by the Equal Care initiative, which has been addressing the unequal conditions in care work for ten years. The initiative emerged from the non-profit association klische*esc e. V. in 2015. The following year, February 29 - or March 1, depending on whether it is a leap year - was set as Equal Care Day. The date for the day of action was deliberately set on the leap day, as this is often forgotten, just as care work is often not sufficiently recognized or valued (Bundesverband Equal Care, n.d.a). By establishing Equal Care Day, the initiative aims to raise awareness of the fact that gender inequality in care work is a serious issue that needs to be given space in political discourse. In addition, by organizing a hybrid festival on Equal Care Day, the initiative aims to develop solutions that reduce the gender care gap at its causes, which are deeply rooted in the social system, instead of just dealing with symptoms (Bundesverband Equal Care, n.d.b).

Reason for Equal Care Day: The gender care gap

Care work is a cornerstone of every form of human coexistence. The term describes all activities in which a person looks after the physical, mental or emotional well-being of others or themselves. There are various forms of care work. It can be directly recognizable as work "for" another person, for example in care, education or supervision. Care work also includes activities that indirectly ensure the well-being of others, such as maintaining a household by cleaning, tidying and doing the laundry (Addati, 2018). This work is often underpaid - such as in the area of care for the elderly or sick - or completely unpaid and is usually not recognized as the time-consuming, physically and mentally demanding work that it is, such as child rearing and housekeeping.

The gender care gap describes the fact that care work is predominantly performed by women and girls: According to the latest time survey study from 2022, women in germany spent an average of around 30 hours each week on unpaid care work, compared to around 21 hours for men and boys. The gender care gap is therefore 43.4% (BMFSFJ, 2025).

Why does the gender care gap exist - both in paid and unpaid care work?

Care work is largely performed by women, as many state institutions and regulations are designed (or were designed for a long time) for citizens to live in a so-called "family breadwinner model". This model was based on the assumption that the man in a heterosexual partnership earns the entire income for a family through full-time employment and the woman takes on all the unpaid care work (Gärtner et al., 2020). Even if this model is not universally valid, it has long been considered the social norm, especially in the Federal Republic of Germany.

These gender stereotypes continue to have an impact to this day: while for people socialized as males, being gainfully employed is often an important part of their identity, for people socialized as females it is often active motherhood (Gärtner, 2024). Although women's employment has steadily increased in recent decades, a feminization of paid and unpaid care work continues to take place, "which stands in the traditional line of a quasi-natural responsibility of women* for care" (Bomert et al., 2021).

The structural disadvantage of care workers

Women and girls who perform unpaid care work are structurally disadvantaged: They have less or no time for their education or their own gainful employment. In addition, women who take on the majority of unpaid care work in their private lives are more likely to work part-time. This puts them at an economic disadvantage, as they are often forced to live in financial dependence on their families, partners or state funds and the risk of poverty in old age is particularly high for them, as they pay less or nothing into a pension fund over the course of their lives (BMFSFJ, 2025).

Professional care workers also experience discrimination: in January 2025, the Federal Employment Agency published a study comparing the proportions of women and men employed in various occupational fields (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2025). Five of the approximately 30 occupational fields examined are counted as paid care work. These include activities such as teaching and training occupations, cleaning occupations, non-medical health, personal care and wellness occupations, medical technology, medical health occupations, education and social housekeeping occupations (ibid.) In each of these five fields, the proportion of women is more than 50%, in four of them even more than 70% (ibid.). These occupational fields, which are often suggested to female socialized persons during their school education and in career guidance offers and are therefore also called "women's occupations" (Antidiskriminierungsstelle des Bundes, n.d.), are often poorly paid. One of the main reasons is that these female-dominated professions are often considered less demanding than "male professions" (ibid.), partly because they have a lower degree of academization, for example.

This unequal distribution of men and women in better and lower-paid professions is one of the factors that make up the gender pay gap. This gap describes the fact that women earn less on average than men. In addition to the "female professions", this is also due to the fact that women are significantly more often in part-time or precarious employment (BMFSFJ, 2023). The gap was 16% in 2025 (Destatis, 2025).

 

Intersectional view of the gender care gap

The grievances of gender inequality in care work are even more apparent in poverty-stricken regions of the world. In areas without access to electricity and running water, the care activities of unpaid female care workers also include tasks such as procuring firewood and clean drinking water (Oxfam Deutschland, 2020). Both tasks often involve long, arduous journeys. On average, women and girls therefore have to spend even more time on unpaid care work. As part of a study by the Women's Economic Empowerment and Care Initiative, residents of five rural communities in Colombia, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Uganda and Zimbabwe were asked how much time they spend per day on primary and secondary1 care work. On average, the women surveyed stated that they spend a total of 13.8 hours per day on both of these types of care work. For the men surveyed, the figure was 4.3 hours (Karimli, 2015).

1 The distinction between primary and secondary refers to whether the respective care work was the only task that the person performed during this time or whether the activity took place at the same time as another one (Karimli, 2015).

What should change?

As part of the central Equal Care Day conference, the "Equal Care Manifesto" was created in 2020, in which concrete demands for a fairer future for care work were set out. Among other things, the signatories of the manifesto call for more appreciation and recognition for care work. This should be achieved by including care work in the gross domestic product. They also call for more "structural support" for care workers. They want to achieve this primarily by improving working conditions in all care professions; however, they also propose further measures, such as the expansion of "professional support services", e.g. in the form of improved municipal support structures and contact points for care work in lower-income households (Bundesverband Equal Care, 2020).

 

Last updated: February 2026

Sources (in German)

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