# Care is infrastructure, not a favor

> 748 million people are out of the workforce doing care that no economic measure ever counts.
- Title: Care is infrastructure, not a favor · Newsweek | Shortify
- Summary: 748 million people are out of the workforce doing care that no economic measure ever counts. Care belongs in economic planning alongside roads and…
- Keywords: care economy, labor, global health, unpaid work, eye care, Care, infrastructure, favor, Newsweek
- Source: Newsweek — https://newsweek.com/care-economic-necessity-not-just-family-responsibility-opinion-12421260
- Published: 2026-09-11T16:47:51+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: care economy, labor, global health, unpaid work, eye care
## Everyone needs care
Young, sick, disabled, old: at some point every person depends on someone else. Yet the care that keeps people independent is still filed under private family duty.

> Everyone depends on care.
## 748 million people, missing
In 2023 the ILO counted 748 million people outside the global labor force because of care responsibilities. 708 million of them were women.
## Not just family policy
Care gets sorted into health or social services budgets. Its effects run straight through the labor market, productivity, and household income.
## Someone always absorbs it
When care is out of reach, the cost does not vanish. A parent leaves a job, an adult takes a day off for appointments, a relative picks up the daily tasks.
## A $411 billion blind spot
WHO estimates at least a billion people have vision impairment that was preventable or is still unaddressed. The yearly productivity loss runs to $411 billion.

> availability, affordability, and awareness
## How a health need becomes care
An older person who cannot see well enough to shop or cook safely needs a driver, then a cook, then a manager of daily life. Conventional measures record none of it.

> What begins as a health need can become a caregiving responsibility
## Same pattern, every form
No affordable childcare and parents lose jobs. No long term care and families fill the gap. No cheap clinic and small problems grow into expensive ones.
## Treat it like roads
We call electricity and digital networks infrastructure because they let people and businesses function. Care does the same work and deserves the same label.

> This is why I believe care should be understood as economic infrastructure.
## Solutions exist, access doesn't
Most causes of vision loss have proven, cheap fixes. WHO reports two of three people in low income countries who need glasses cannot get them.
## Who has to move
Governments fund community services and local workforces, employers offer caregiver benefits and flexibility, technology closes distance. And measurement has to count unpaid work.

> If we measure only the hours someone spends in paid employment, we miss many of the conditions that make those hours possible.
## Key takeaway

Care belongs in economic planning alongside roads and electricity, because without it people cannot work, learn, or stay independent.