Abstract
The care economy involves creating a collaborative ecosystem where health care and social support sectors work together to enhance societal well-being and economic growth, yet it faces significant challenges.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines the care economy as the sum of all forms of care work, including both paid and unpaid forms. Care is required to meet the physical, psychological, and emotional needs of others. This includes direct care activities that require physical proximity, and indirect care activities that create an enabling environment for personal caregiving.
The care economy encompasses policies, regulatory frameworks, services, infrastructure, institutions, financing mechanisms, and social norms that influence and govern the provision and receipt of health care and social support throughout the life course. It is a rapidly growing sector due to increasing demand for care across all ages and abilities, and it is expected to create a significant number of jobs in the coming years.
As the global population is ageing, care for older adults becomes increasingly complex. Detecting complexity is important but challenging. Complexity impacts the requirements of optimal health care and support for older people to remain independent longer. Coordinating and integrating health care and social support for this vulnerable population can be challenging and often fragmented.
This poster will share the results of a scoping review that aimed to elucidate the current state of play in the care economy, and explore the current landscape of the care economy, which heavily depends on a workforce that delivers care. The importance of detection, measurement and addressing complexity of health care and social support services with be explained. Finally, how integration of care and care support can occur will be explored.