Three of Every Four Unpaid Caregivers Never Cease Being Poor

ByDora Villanueva

This article by Dora Villanueva originally appeared in the March 13, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Three out of every four people in Mexico who are born into poverty and spend their lives providing unpaid care for others die in poverty. Thus, the burden of caregiving—carried out primarily by women—is a determining factor in the inequality of opportunity among the Mexican population and “a factor that exacerbates poverty,” as evidenced by the Espinosa Yglesias Center for Studies (CEEY).

According to the organization, the role of caregiving among the determining factors of inequality of opportunity in Mexico is significant. In fact, it ranks third, only behind the economic resources of the household in which a person grew up and their parents’ level of education. It even ranks higher than factors historically analyzed such as indigenous status, skin tone, or coming from a rural area.

Amid the growing debate about the need for a solid framework for the National Care System, as the first mechanism to redress historical inequalities in a labor market still foreign to more than half of the women in the country, the CEEY showed that unpaid care work is the third factor that most conditions inequality in Mexico.

In its study Social Mobility and Care, the association shows that in 40 percent of Mexican households with fewer resources, unpaid care becomes an additional obstacle to climbing the so-called “social ladder,” that is, for a person to be able to modify their socioeconomic position throughout their life or in relation to that of their parents.

In this population group, 73 percent of caregivers rely on this income throughout their lives, compared to 64 percent who do not carry this type of burden, the report shows, based on the ESRU Survey of Social Mobility in Mexico 2023.

The report highlights the intersections of inequality with gender: 76 percent of caregivers in Mexico are women, so the lack of an extensive National Care System represents an obstacle, especially for them.

“Caregivers have fewer educational, employment, and political and social participation opportunities, which reduces their chances of improving their socioeconomic position compared to that of their parents,” the CEEY stated.

Mónica Orozco, author of the report and director of Genders, pointed out that “on top of already low social mobility”, caregiving becomes “an anchor for the lowest strata of society”, and on top of this obstacle, being a woman has 10 times greater weight in the inequality of opportunities among those who take on these tasks.

Unpaid work not only presents an obstacle to accessing the labor market, but also leads to educational risks and greater negative impacts on the mental health of caregivers, which opens up another niche for providing care to the latter, Orozco explained.

At this point, Ortiz and Gonzalo Hernández Licona, director of the CEEY Social Observatory, explained that beyond what is the responsibility of the State, care must also be seen in light of its co-responsibility with the private sector.

Hence the importance of the agreements being made by the Mexican Social Security Institute and the Ministry of Economy, together with private companies, to recognize the economic importance of care and see it as part of a package of labour benefits.