Unpaid care and domestic work (UCDW) is performed around the world disproportionately by women and girls. Oxfam is committed to alleviating this burden of unpaid care and domestic work and to elevating the discourse on the value of UCDW’s contribution to society. As part of its continuing efforts to contribute to enhanced public policy around UCDW, Oxfam partnered with the University of Notre Dame Keough School of Global Affairs’ Integration Lab (i-
Lab) to conduct a pilot study and populate Oxfam’s Care Policy Scorecard in the Philippines in order to determine milestones and gaps in the country’s unpaid care policy landscape.

Assisted by a local Philippine research team, the i-Lab team conducted a desk review on Sections 1 and 3 of Oxfam’s Care Policy Scorecard. The i-Lab team completed approximately 60% of the questions in Sections 1: Unpaid Care Work and Section 3: Cross-Cutting through desk review of the existing policies which was then supplemented with information gathered through ten key informant interviews (KIIs) and four focus group discussions (FGDs).

Major findings revealed that unpaid care work and crosscutting policies in the Philippines do exist but are transformative to a limited extent. The completed scorecard for Section 1 and Section 3 showed that the Philippines has policies that cover most of the indicators measured. The average scores for Policy were 70%, while Access and Reach were lower at 53%, Budget and Administration 35%, Regulation and Monitoring 48%, and Design and Impact 23%. These were measured across all the indicators for Section 1 and 3. The scores for many indicators were low due to lack of available data or lack of knowledge of key informants regarding the process of policy formulation.

It is recommended that policy planners ensure greater participation by women, marginalized groups, caregivers and care workers who could help design policies to better fit the needs of all sectors, which in turn would render these policies more transformative.

Deeper analysis of the policies showed that it remains difficult to find monitoring data on the implementation and impact of policies, but available data showed that poorer, rural, marginalized communities lacked Care Supporting Infrastructure such as water, electricity, ICT, roads and transport resulting in a higher burden of work hours and lowered access to Care Services such as Healthcare and Education. More rigorous monitoring by agencies with oversight and disaggregated data collection by line agencies would assist researchers and policy makers to monitor services in the future.

Mechanisms for National Government to give extra funding support for LGUs to bring Care Supporting Infrastructure to poor, rural or marginalized communities will alleviate the burden on unpaid care givers and also give these same communities better access to Care Services. Following the Mandanas-Garcia Ruling, more of the burden of implementing Care Services is now through the LGU local offices. It is recommended that more funding be allocated for expanding staffing levels in these local offices and for capacity building. This scorecard report can be used as a tool to increase awareness of the 5Rs and to ensure that programs addressing the needs of unpaid care workers, the majority of whom are women, are continued and strengthened.

While the analysis of country findings for the populated sections provides a foundation for future research, the i-Lab team suggests that Oxfam Pilipinas or other advocacy groups populate Section 2: Paid Care Work of the scorecard before comparing the Philippine experience globally. The scores from the Care Policy Scorecard can be used as a baseline should Oxfam or other stakeholders continue to explore unpaid care work in the Philippines.

Further, since the application the Oxfam Care Policy Scorecard in the Philippines is a pilot run, this report also includes suggestions on how to improve future iterations of using the scorecard, particularly outlining strategies to enhance data collection and scorecard formatting.

Oxfam Pilipinas and the i-Lab team are excited to contribute to the growing literature and research on unpaid care work policies through this initiative. The team hopes future researchers will continue to run Oxfam’s Care Policy Scorecard with consistent frequency, and continually evaluate how to equalize care work distribution.