New United Nations study recommends more integrated and fair care system in China

Date: Monday, 27 July 2026

[Press release]

BEIJING, China — UN Women and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have released a joint research report, Building a Better Future: China’s Care System and High-Quality Human Capital Investment, which highlights the strategic importance of positioning the care system as a new generation of public service infrastructure and calls for developing a more integrated, equitable, sustainable, and gender-responsive care ecosystem.

This study benefited from the support of the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office in China, integrating technical contributions from the UN People and Prosperity Results Group and scholars.

Care (encompassing childcare, elderly care, and care for persons with disabilities) is not only a fundamental public service, but also a vital cornerstone of high-quality investment in human capital. While families remain the core of caregiving, the intensifying care supply–demand gap highlights the opportunity to strengthen public system support, expand socialized care services, and foster a more equitable distribution of unpaid care work.

Currently, care responsibilities and labour remain primarily borne by women. In China, women spend twice as much time as men on unpaid care and domestic work. This imbalance restricts women's career advancement and limits their full potential across the life course, while reinforcing traditional gender roles in caregiving and imposing heavy pressure on families.

Released on 22 June, the report systematically reviews China’s progress in care and social protection policies and proposes the Chinese Care System Framework as a conceptual and analytical reference to support the modernization transition of the country’s care system. The framework is grounded in the United Nations’ 6R Principles: recognize, reduce, redistribute, reward, represent, and resource. It approaches the care system not as a set of isolated welfare programmes, but as a dynamic, gender-responsive and family-friendly “ecosystem” in which families, communities, markets and the State interdependently share care responsibilities.

The report advocates for a strategic, holistic approach that embeds care into national public service architecture. It emphasizes that investing in care systems promotes children's survival and development, inclusive economic growth, gender equality and women’s empowerment, and the rights and dignity of all caregivers and those receiving care.

To support the strategic transition of the care system during the country’s 15th Five-year Plan period, the report recommends:

Establishing a unified policy framework that integrates distinct care sectors through a life-course lens and designates care system development as a new generation of public service infrastructure
Improving coordination and financing mechanisms across care sectors, guided by shared care responsibility by multiple stakeholders and gender equality as core principles
Investing in quality care services and empowering caregivers by ensuring decent working conditions, formal social protection, professional recognition, and clear career development pathways for formal and informal care workers
Upgrading family- and care-friendly communities and addressing institutional barriers, including household registration (hukou) constraints, to ensure that all people (especially migrants and their accompanying dependents), can access care services equitably, universally, and accessibly based on their actual place of residence
Building a more inclusive social protection system for families and individuals, especially vulnerable groups and disadvantaged households, while introducing structural safeguards against entrenching women's traditional roles in unpaid care and promoting the equal and fair sharing of unpaid care responsibilities between household members

UN Women will continue to support the strengthening of China’s care system, collaborating closely with key partners to translate research findings into actionable policy briefs, innovative pilot programmes, and policy dialogues and advocacy.

Read the full report:

Building a Better Future: China’s Care System and High-Quality Human Investment

Based on the CCSF, this research proposes a comprehensive set of strategic policy recommendations that outline the transition pathway for China’s care system during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. Recommendations are structured sequentially, cascading from system-wide reforms through the CCSF layers, down to the family and care-recipient level. This deliberate progression emphasizes that resolving macro-level structural issues is a prerequisite for effectively delivering support to families and individuals.

联合国新报告《共建更美好的未来：中国照护体系与高质量人力资本投资》发布

日期：2026年7月27日

English | 中文

北京, 中国大陆 — 联合国妇女署和联合国儿童基金会联合发布最新研究报告《共建更美好的未来：中国照护体系与高质量人力资本投资》。报告提出将照护体系作为新一代公共服务基础设施的重要性以及建立更加整合、更加公平及更加可持续的照护体系的迫切性。本研究得到了联合国驻华协调员办公室的支持，融合了联合国“人类与繁荣成果组”及照护领域专家学者的相关贡献。

照护（包括育儿、养老和助残）不仅是一项公共服务，更是高质量“投资于人”的重要基石。尽管家庭仍是照护的核心，但日益加剧的照护供需矛盾突显出，加强照护服务社会化支持的必要性：需要更强大的公共体系支持，以及更公平地分配无偿照护工作。目前，照护责任和劳动仍主要由女性承担；在中国，女性投入在无偿照护和家务劳动上的时间约为男性的两倍。这种不均衡不仅制约了女性的职业发展，阻碍其在全生命周期中充分发挥潜能，同时也固化了照护分工中的传统性别角色，更映射出家庭在独自承担照护责任时所承受的重重系统性压力。

报告创新性地提出了“中国照护体系框架”，作为中国照护体系现代化转型的概念与分析借鉴。该框架基于联合国“6R原则” （认可、减少、再分配、回报、代表性和资源），将照护体系视为一个动态的、性别平等的、对儿童和家庭友好的生态系统，而非若干孤立的福利项目。在这一体系中，家庭、社区、市场和国家作为相互依存的主体共同发挥作用、共担照护责任。报告呼吁采取战略性、整体性的路径，将照护定位为公共服务产品，并强调对照护体系的投资有助于促进儿童的生存与发展、推动包容性增长、促进性别平等和女性赋能，同时提升所有照护者与被照护者的尊严与福祉。

针对“十五五”时期中国照护体系转型，报告提出了以下主要政策建议：

建立统一框架，以全生命周期视角整合不同照护领域，并将照护体系建设作为“十五五”规划期间的新一代公共服务基础设施。
完善跨照护领域的协调和筹资机制，将照护责任多方共担和性别平等作为核心指导原则。
投资高质量照护服务，并通过确保更好的工作条件、社会保护和职业发展路径，全面赋能所有照护服务从业人员。
升级社区层级服务，打造家庭和照护友好型社区；打破户籍壁垒，确保无论城乡居民、尤其是流动人口及随迁家属能够基于常住地，公平、普惠、可及地获得照护服务。
构建支持家庭和个人的包容性社会保障体系。针对特殊困难群体和弱势家庭采取精准支持措施，并在政策设计中引入个人保障机制，防止固化女性在无偿照护中的传统角色，积极倡导男女平等分担照护责任。

展望未来，联合国妇女署将继续推进照护体系建设议程，与相关各方紧密合作，推动将报告成果转化为可操作的政策简报、本地化创新试点项目以及持续的联合政策倡导，共同构建一个更加公平、包容、可持续且性别平等的中国照护体系，为每一个家庭创建更美好的未来。

下载报告全文，请点击：

好的未来：中国照护体系与高质量人力资本投资》

本研究提出“中国照护体系框架”（CCSF）这一概念性分析工具，并据此设计多层次的政策建议，旨在为“十五五”期间中国照护体系的转型路径提供参考。这些建议按体系层面、市场和劳动力层面、基层社区层面、家庭及个人层面有序递进展开，着重强调“多元主体共担社会化照护责任”和性别平等作为照护体系转型发展中的指导性原则，着重阐述进一步建设更公平、包容、普惠、可持续、性别响应型的现代照护体系的路径方法，着重讨论现代照护体系如何更好实现高质量人力资本投资，保障和赋能照护者和被照护者的尊严与福祉，避免固化女性在无偿照护劳动中的传统角色，为每一个家庭提供更好的未来。