By Mónica Silva Ruiz

Municipal Trustee of the Puebla City Council

To speak of care is to speak of the heart that sustains life: the tasks that guarantee the physical, emotional, social, and economic well-being of our societies. These are not "complementary" or "natural" activities for women; they are essential jobs that have been historically made invisible, feminized, and unequally distributed. Pautasi (2007) stated that, throughout history, women have been the primary providers of care because the form of social organization exclusively assigned them unpaid care work within the home, imbued with meaningful values that have reinforced this assignment over the centuries.

However, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in its Advisory Opinion 31/2025, recognized the autonomous human right to care and specified the right to receive care, to provide care, and to self-care, under the principles of equality, social and gender co-responsibility, and progressiveness. This ruling obliges States, and therefore local governments, to adopt regulatory, budgetary, and public policy measures to guarantee this right. For its part, Article 115 of the Constitution mandates municipalities to provide essential public services directly, continuously, and efficiently, as an obligation derived from their municipal autonomy and in order to guarantee community well-being and development. Guaranteeing the right to care is not only an ethical and legal commitment: it is a political decision that requires stable, sufficient, and progressive resources.

Women spend more than twice as much time as men on unpaid care work, which limits their participation in the workforce, politics, and community. Recognizing this work as part of the local productive system is key to promoting development, generating formal employment, and strengthening the social fabric.

In Puebla, the care economy is an invisible but strategic sector. Time-use surveys reveal that women spend more than twice as many hours as men on unpaid care. This inequality limits their labor insertion, political participation, and economic autonomy.

The cost of this inequality falls not only on women, but on society as a whole: lower productivity, less innovation, greater poverty, and inequality. On the contrary, recognizing care as part of the local productive system opens up a great opportunity to promote development, generate formal employment, strengthen the social fabric, and build more just communities.

International experience shows that when governments invest in care services, the benefits multiply: formal jobs are created, women's labor force participation increases, the health and education of girls and boys improves, and structural inequality is reduced. In Puebla, this can be a strategic path for economic development with a gender perspective. To advance the construction of a solid and sustainable care system, four axes of intervention are proposed: legislative, executive, budgetary, and social.

Legislative Axis

• Express recognition of the right to care in state and municipal legislation.

• Creation of a State Care Law that requires the development of state and municipal plans, the installation of specialized systems, and the establishment of monitoring and accountability mechanisms.

• Including the obligation to fund these systems in the law itself, to prevent them from depending on the political will of the moment.

Executive Axis

• Development of a state and municipal care diagnosis that quantifies needs, available services, and gender gaps.

• Creation of the State and Municipal Care System, with inter-institutional coordination bodies and clear budgetary powers.

• Establishment of Comprehensive Care Centers and, at the municipal level, the possibility of having a Care Secretariat to coordinate programs and services.

Budget Axis

• Creation of a municipal care tax to be incorporated into the cross-cutting annex of the draft revenue bill.

• Establishment of a Municipal Fund for Care and Well-being, with clear operating rules and citizen participation in its monitoring.

• Inclusion of care as a priority item in the state budget, with specific and progressive allocations.

• Use of mechanisms such as budget tagging and multi-year programming to ensure stability and sustainability.

Social Axis

• Partnerships with the business sector, promoting socially responsible companies that implement care services in the workplace.

• Participation of the academy, generating knowledge and training professionals specialized in care management, with training and certification programs.

• Empowering civil society through publicly funded community agreements and projects that strengthen innovative care models in urban and rural areas.

The three pillars work together to ensure a comprehensive public policy: it recognizes rights, ensures stable resources, and fosters social co-responsibility. Budget allocation, cross-cutting annexes, and multi-year programming are key tools for sustainable and progressive financing. Furthermore, social and educational initiatives strengthen the culture of care, promote gender equality, and contribute to highlighting the economic and social value of care work.

Implementing these pillars in Puebla will reduce inequalities, formalize care work, generate employment, and build a more equitable and supportive society. Guaranteeing the right to care is a strategic political decision that requires commitment, planning, resources, and participation from all stakeholders: the State, families, the private sector, and civil society. Puebla has the opportunity to become a national benchmark in care policies, combining regulations, budgets, and social co-responsibility to transform the lives of its residents, and in particular, of women who have historically carried the burden of care.