Good Compromiso. Why South America is ahead of us when it comes to care work

A preliminary note from the editors: This article was written by Antje Schrupp for the magazine 'Zeitzeichen. Evangelische Kommentare zu Religion und Gesellschaft'. The original publication from 17 October can be found here. Antje Schrupp has been associated with the Care Revolution network from the very beginning. We would like to thank the magazine and Antje for the opportunity to publish this article! On the subject of care for the elderly, we would also like to draw your attention to our collection of texts and to the activities of the Alliance for a Solidarity-based Long-Term Care Insurance.

Have you ever heard of Tlatelolco? Tlatelolco is a neighbourhood of Mexico City, and something remarkable happened there in August. Unfortunately, there was hardly any coverage of it in the German media, so this column has to make up for it.

From 12 to 15 August, representatives of the member states of CEPAL, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe), met in Tlatelolco and adopted the "Compromiso de Tlatelolco", a kind of agreement or voluntary commitment. For the coming decade from 2025 to 2035, they want to strive for "substantial gender equality"; the Compromiso also formulates a "human right to care" and understands this to mean "the right of people to care, to be cared for and to practise self-care". Guaranteeing this is an obligation of the state and a "responsibility that must be borne by people from all areas of society, men and women, families, communities and the private sector." Building a caring society is "an essential pillar for overcoming the global crisis" and "a new paradigm for sustainable development, equality and peace".

Far ahead

The "Tlatelolco Agreement" is far ahead of anything being discussed in Europe on the subject of care. In Europe, the topic is notoriously seen as a luxury issue that can be addressed when there are no other problems (war, economic crisis, good poll ratings for the AfD). The care budget is also the first area to be cut when people are short of money. This can be seen again in the debate about the possible abolition of care level 1. Not only does the claimed savings potential of 1.8 billion euros not even exist - in fact, only around 640 million euros are actually being utilised. Above all, this was once again an example of how unsystematically the issue is being approached.

Care level 1 is intended for people who are generally able to live independently but need help with some things: re-making their beds, dusting the top of the wardrobe, winterising the flowers on the balcony or doing the weekly shopping. The care insurance fund provides a small budget for this. It also provides financial support for any necessary remodelling in the home, such as a barrier-free shower.

Lots of little things

What could be saved by abolishing this? People might fall off the ladder when cleaning or slip when trying to get into the bathtub - in which case they incur medical costs instead of care costs, which is good for the care insurers' balance sheet, but unfortunately bad for the health insurers'. But perhaps they will get care level 2 more quickly, in which case the savings idea would have turned out to be a cost driver. Or perhaps they will die more quickly and cost the general public nothing at all? I wouldn't be surprised if that has already been calculated. Or the daughter-in-law takes over the gardening, bed-making and shopping and reduces her employment in return - which then becomes a problem for employers, however, due to the shortage of skilled labour. Or maybe the daughter-in-law does the caring in addition to everything else and gets burnt out.

So many possibilities! Unfortunately, none of them are good! This is typical of our approach: All sorts of small measures are introduced and then abolished again, but there is no realistic overall concept. I hope - as we all know, hope dies last - that at some point a government will evaluate the thousands of individual measures, scrutinise them for efficiency and sustainability and then draw up a coherent plan that can work.

Central task

And I hope so out of self-interest. Because in 20 or 25 years' time, my age group of today's 60-somethings will no longer be able to enjoy the professional care services that are available today. Even if the state were to print money out of fear of us old people, there wouldn't be any skilled workers to hire. The question is not whether our current system will collapse, but when and how this collapse will take place. Whether we will organise it in a spirit of solidarity and tackle the challenge rationally, or whether we will simply slide into it. Whether it will be a change "by design" or "by disaster".

The "Compromiso de Tlatelolco" has given my hopes a little food for thought. Even if Germany is turning a blind eye to the problem: Elsewhere, people are obviously thinking seriously about it and collecting ideas. The Latin American and Caribbean countries have realised that care is not a feminist fad, but a central task of responsible politics. Although the Tlatelolco agreement is still just a piece of paper, it does formulate the necessary change of perspective: the mutual care of people does not somehow take care of itself, but must be prioritised and integrated into political and economic structures. We should learn from this and join the Compromiso.

Antje Schrupp, journalist and political scientist. She lives in Frankfurt/Main.