Investing in the care economy: a gender analysis of employment stimulus in seven OECD countries

Increasing public investment would stimulate employment and economic growth and provide a more effective means of moving out of recession than current austerity policies.
This report makes such a case for public investment that is in social as well as physical infrastructure. By social infrastructure we mean education, care and health services and more specifically for this report, social care activities, that is care for the elderly and disabled and for pre-school aged children. This notion of the social infrastructure includes the labour force that provides care services and its skills, as well as the buildings and facilities in which they work. By physical infrastructure we are referring to the construction sector and activities such as building housing, roads and railways, as this is the more usual outlet for
the public investment called upon in times of recession in order to generate employment.