One of the oldest Jobs is to take care of another person; adults or children physically or cognitively disabled, or with a chronic illness. Unfortunately, Latin America has not given it the recognition it deserves. Regulations are incipient, there is a lot of informality in the way it is compensated, and there is a lack of training, and awareness of the impact, risks and responsibilities that all of these may bring about. 

In contrast, in developed countries there is recognition, and regulations in place, and there has been some progress in countries like Uruguay, Chile, Mexico and Costa Rica.

Caregivers have an invisible job that has great impact. During the pandemic, different studies in the world, like the 2020 Carer Well-Being Index report by Merck, have made more evident caregivers’ lack of wellbeing: more anxiety as a result of physical and emotional exhaustion, financial uncertainty for the time they spend providing care, and concern about being infected and not having a substitute.

For more than a decade, research about care in Latin America and Spain by Carolina Foundation have pointed about that care is conceived as a moral duty on the part of women of submitting to caring for another person, and it has remained that way.

In Colombia, the report Time for Care: Inequality in Numbers, by UN Women and Dane (National Administrative Department of Statistics), which provides official socioeconomic statistics, says that caregivers sleep less and spend less time in personal matters than those who do other jobs. It is calculated that in Colombia more than 8 million people provide unpaid direct care (15% of the population), the big majority of them are women since age 10.

In response to that, the ECR [Colombian School of Rehabilitation] has created a technical program to support training for this specialized talent that the world needs, which should also include consciousness for a high sense of service, empathy and ethics.

On the other hand, the world is getting older. Being a time of more awareness about self-care in order to be more autonomous in the future, the statistics are not very comforting: there are more than 47 million people with dementia, Alzheimer and Parkinson, and the numbers from 2016 will double by 2030, which increases the immediate need of having more people trained to provide care.

Green Paper on Ageing, by the European Commission sets forth the importance of promoting solidarity and responsibility in between generations, foreseeing an increase in the number of people who will require care. In 2016 they were 19 million, and it is estimated that this will reach 23,6 million in 2030 and 30,5 million in 2050. Also, in the short term family caregivers work will not be sustainable sue to the size of families, and the increasing inclusion of women in the labor market. 

(*) Doctor of Pedagogy. Dean of Escuela Colombiana de Rehabilitación (ECR). goe.rojas@ecr.edu.co