Who Will Care for Whom? The New Demography of Care
In a society that lives longer than ever, the most urgent question is not technological or economic, but human: who will care for whom?
The demography of the twenty-first century does not only describe population pyramids: it forces us to rethink the affective, economic, and ethical foundations that sustain life.
Care —historically invisible, privatized, and feminized— has become one of the most profound structural challenges of long-lived societies. And the numbers confirm it: there are more people who need care, fewer available caregivers, and a model that no longer fits social reality.
A Model That Is Running Out
For decades, care rested on an apparently stable formula:
larger families, women as the primary caregivers, and lives that ended before frailty extended too far.
That model no longer exists.
Families are smaller, life trajectories more diverse, women participate fully in the labor market, and life expectancy has lengthened to 84 years in Spain, according to the INE (2024), and 81.5 years in Portugal, according to INE-Portugal (2022–2024).
At the same time, healthy life expectancy is not increasing at the same pace. This means more years of dependence, more need for support, and more pressure on a system that was not prepared for this transition.
The question stops being individual —“who will care for me?”— and becomes collective:
how do we organize a society where care stops being a privilege or a burden and becomes a right?
The Decline of “Family Care”
The myth that the family can handle everything does not withstand demographic analysis.
Single-person households are increasing, migration scatters generations, and simultaneous caregiving is a reality:
many people care for children, grandchildren, and aging parents at the same time.
Added to this is something that studies in Spain and Portugal show clearly:
80% of informal care still falls on women, especially those between 45 and 65 years old.
They are the “hinge generation”: caring while working, while aging, while holding everything together.
This model is neither sustainable nor fair.
Redistributing care is not only about organizing resources: it is about reorganizing society.
Migration and Care: A Fragile Relationship
In recent years, both Spain and Portugal have relied on migration as a partial solution: thousands of migrant women sustain the “care economy” in homes and care facilities.
However, this model raises two dilemmas:
- It is structurally precarious, because it depends on fragile labor conditions, low wages, and limited social protection.
- It is demographically unstable, because the countries of origin are also aging and will cease to be sources of care labor.
In the medium term, the equation does not work.
Technology Helps, but Does Not Replace
Social robots, motion sensors, artificial intelligence, advanced telecare…
Technology can do a great deal for autonomy, but it cannot replace the human bond.
It can detect a fall but not offer comfort; it can remind someone of medication but not share a warm silence.
The future of care will be hybrid: technology that frees up time, and human time that restores meaning.
Care as Social Infrastructure
If we want a long-lived society to be a livable society, care must stop being a private responsibility and become public infrastructure, as essential as transportation or education.
This implies three changes:
Recognizing care as work, with rights, training, and fair wages.
Building a public network of accessible services, from home support to community day centers.
Implementing shared-responsibility models, where families, institutions, and communities share care without overburdening anyone.
Spain and Portugal are moving in this direction, but the magnitude of the challenge requires greater ambition:
moving from a “society that delegates care” to a society that organizes it.
Caring in Community: The Third Way
Between family care and institutional care lies a fertile territory that is already emerging: community care.
Neighborhood groups, local networks, senior cohousing, intergenerational projects, structured volunteering…
Small social infrastructures that allow older adults to live in their neighborhoods, maintain social bonds, and
receive daily support without losing autonomy.
In many Iberian municipalities, these models reveal something fundamental:
loneliness decreases when care is shared.
Community does not replace the State, but it complements it.
And above all, it restores something no policy can guarantee on its own: a sense of belonging.
A New Ethics of Care
In the end, the demography of care is not only about numbers, but about values.
What place do we give to fragility?
How do we understand dependency?
Who deserves care, and who offers it?
In long-lived societies, care is not only a task: it is culture, ethics, and the construction of the future.
The question is not simply “who will care for whom?” but something deeper:
we all care, and we will all be cared for.
That reciprocity—human, social, intergenerational—will be the heart of the new long-lived societies.
Can you imagine a society where caring is not a burden, but a way of living together?