Care is everywhere and nowhere. Our everyday lives have endless acts of care in them. Some of these are small and just enable us to get out the door to school or paid work on time. Others mean someone is able to live well, have medication they need to stay alive, feel loved and nurtured.

Despite care being foundational to society, it is consistently under-valued, under-recognised and under-regarded leaving it invisible in conversations about our collective experience. It is this lack of regard that leads to its under-reporting. Data on care is patchy to say the least; in fact unpaid care doesn’t even feature explicitly in labour force statistics as, in today’s parlance, labour only has value if it contributes to “growth”.

Policy decisions tend to follow the evidence, and if we don’t officially know something exists there is no clear drive to improve the experience of those whose lives are often defined by it. That’s why at Care Full we’re advocating for a new approach to labour market data which includes a better understanding of how unpaid care intersects with paid work, looking for paid work and decisions not to take on paid work at all.

We’re not alone. Across the world – and especially in Central and South America – there is a growing call for the identification, recognition and reparation of unpaid labour. The beautifully titled, Economies that Dare to Care, recognises the need for a shift to our economic model away from the extractive capitalist one to one that centres care. 

Care Full recently was supported by the marvellous Connected by Data to develop a data campaign. Compared to our peers in the cohort we were undertaking an unusual campaign. Ours was not one based around access to data or a scandal based on what the data showed. No, our campaign was about the absence of data. The absence of meaningful data on care may contribute to the lack of attention – nay care – it receives in wider conversations about the economy, society and rights.

In the build up to Carers Rights Day, I started to think about the idea of fighting for your rights, of great solidarity movements that have shifted power, shifted society to recognise rights and lead to greater equity. But, when I look at the rights that have been won for carers, I cannot help but feel deflated; is this it? The right to a flu jab? The right to “request” flexible working?

So often our rights are contingent on someone else – usually an employer – fulfilling them. The theme of this year’s Carer’s Rights Day is recognising your rights, but even when we recognise them we still have to fight for them. And the challenge for many carers is fighting takes time, energy and resource. Fighting is what many carers do on a daily basis but the fight for recognition feels impossible when many see themselves as alone, invisible in society.

Now if you’ll indulge an analogy I often draw on; at the end of Avengers End Game, Captain America stands and painfully straps on his broken shield. He thinks he may be fighting a losing battle alone but then is joined by his fellow Avengers. They join him because their fight will mean that everyone is valued. Imagine if carers could see one another, would we then come together to stand and fight for much better recognition and rights? And how might a collective fight help create change for all of us? Especially if others stood with us.

I say: Avengers, Assemble.