With the European Union (EU) spending tens of billions of euros on the green transition – and some estimates projecting that such investments could create up to 1 million new jobs in the EU by 2030 – it’s important to think twice about which jobs are truly ‘green’, and who will benefit. Without additional measures, the employment gains from greening traditional sectors will disproportionately favour new jobs for men, potentially widening existing gender inequalities.
According to my recent research, commissioned by UN Women for the upcoming report on Progress of the World's Women, across Europe and North America, women currently account for only 27% of employment in transport industries, 23% in energy production and utilities and 11% in construction. And under current models, investing in energy/utilities would yield more than twice as many jobs for men as for women while investing in construction would create almost 4 times as many jobs for men versus women.
A transition that seems environmentally sustainable but still fails to be socially just, widening rather than closing existing gender employment gaps, is not ultimately sustainable in the true sense of the word.
The solution isn’t to invest less in renewable energy, cleaner transportation or sustainable construction. These investments must continue. Rather, we need to expand how ‘green investment’ is defined.
Care jobs as green jobs
Care services – including long-term care for older people and people with disabilities, as well as early childhood education and care – are part of the social infrastructure on which every economy depends.
They’re also remarkably low-carbon. Across Europe and North America, investing in care would generate approximately 50% fewer direct and indirect CO2-equivalent emissions than the same investment in construction, and 23 times fewer emissions than investing in utilities. Indeed, for every USD 1 million invested, care generates approximately 103 tons of CO₂-equivalent emissions, compared with 219 tons for construction and 2,302 tons for utilities.
Across Europe and Northern America, comparing emission intensities and job creation, investing in energy/utilities produces 446 tons of CO₂-equivalent per full-time job created (directly and indirectly), which is 60 times higher than a job created from investing in care. For construction, emissions per job created would be around 25 tons, about 3.3 times more than for care (see Figure 1 below).
Figure 1 Employment and emissions by industry in Europe and Northern America, 2023
So, care jobs aren’t just socially valuable, they have a significantly smaller carbon footprint.
More jobs per dollar invested
Investing in care creates approximately 1.5 times as many jobs as investing the same amount in construction and twice as many jobs as investing in utilities. For example, calculations for Europe and North America show investing USD 1 million in care creates roughly 14 full-time-equivalent jobs, while the same investment generates only nine jobs in construction and a mere five in utilities. To give a sense of magnitude, a 1% of GDP investment – a roughly 50% increase on current public spending on childcare and long-term care services – would translate into 7.3 million full-time-equivalent jobs created, versus only 4.6 million jobs in construction and 2.7 million in utilities.
The care sector is also more labour-intensive, so the same investment creates significantly more jobs overall.
Figure 2. Type I FTE female employment creation (thousand jobs per 1% GDP invested – 2023)
More jobs for women
There’s also an important gender dimension, given that women make up around 80% of the care workforce across Europe and North America.
For a given investment, care generates approximately 4 times as many direct and indirect jobs for women as for men – a near inverse of the pattern in energy and construction. And for the same amount invested, care creates roughly 7 times as many jobs for women as in energy/utilities and 6 times as many as construction.
This doesn’t mean that women should stay concentrated in care work while men should build the rest of the green economy. Quite the opposite. Women need access to jobs in renewable energy, construction, transportation and other traditionally male-dominated sectors. At the same time, care work itself needs to be properly valued, with better pay, working conditions, training and career opportunities, which may also attract more men. It needs to be recognized as a powerful lever for closing employment gaps as part of the green transition, and for the employment and climate benefits it brings.
Levelling the playing field
A genuinely gender-just green transition therefore requires action in both directions – breaking down gender segregation in emerging green industries, while investing significantly in the care sector, which is already low-carbon, employment-generating and essential to human well-being.
The climate transition is ultimately about reorganizing our economies so they can sustain both the planet and the people that call it home. Roads, buildings, electrical grids and renewable energy systems are infrastructure, but so is childcare, eldercare and support for people with disabilities.
If we want our investments to deliver environmental, employment and social impacts, then care deserves a place alongside construction and clean energy.
So, the question isn’t whether care jobs are ‘green jobs’, but why we’ve waited so long to recognize them as such.
This data presented here are drawn from research conducted by the author and commissioned by UN Women for Progress of the World's Women 2027: Gender Equality in the Age of Climate Crisis. Further details on the methodology are available.
