Work Together (Archive)

Care through cooperatives: answer to the ILO survey

Human care needs are expanding and becoming ever more complex. Today, care work is found in various forms from child care and elderly care, to long term caregiving to people with disabilities and chronic illnesses like HIV and AIDS. With the expansion of care needs, the care economy has enormous potential for employment generation in the coming years-especially for women, as well as other groups often excluded from the labour market. Across the globe, cooperatives have been closely engaged with issues of labour force inclusion and care. However, much about the provision of care through cooperatives remains to be understood.

4 August 2015

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Gender, Equality and Diversity Branch (GED) and Cooperatives Unit (COOP) has launched a survey about the provision of care services through cooperatives. Share your inputs, they will contribute to a better understanding of care through cooperatives, and help identify the resources cooperative organizations need to be viable employers and providers of care.

The objectives of this survey are to:
1. Determine the landscape of cooperatives that provide care, including their beneficiaries, members, objectives and scope;
2. Ascertain the legislative, social and economic contexts that drive care through cooperatives;
3. Identify the challenges and opportunities that cooperatives face in initiating and sustaining care provision and decent employment;
4. Determine the resources that cooperatives need in order to be viable care providers, enterprises and employers;
5. Assess how well cooperatives affect the livelihood of care beneficiaries, workers and the larger community, compared to private and public care provision options;
6. Determine whether care cooperatives and cooperatives that provide care are registered; and
7. Determine under which form care cooperatives and cooperatives that provide care are registered.

It takes approximately 20 minutes to complete.

*Caption: Lydie Nesvadba