Care as a Public Priority: A Maturity Test for Long‑Lived Societies

A society is not measured only by its life expectancy, but by what happens when someone needs support. That is the uncomfortable —and decisive— question running through the study The Right to Care and the Care Economy in Spain, presented by CENIE at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. The underlying message is clear: care can no longer remain a private matter resolved, almost by inertia, within households. In long‑lived societies, care is a national policy.

From the household to the public agenda

For far too long, care has been narrated as something natural, familiar, feminine, and cheap. But that narrative is misleading. When care is not funded, organized, or recognized, its cost does not disappear — it shifts. And it shifts onto families —particularly onto women—, onto caregivers, onto people living in situations of dependency, onto companies, and ultimately onto society as a whole.

Longevity is one of the greatest social achievements of our time. But turning it into shared well‑being requires reorganizing support for autonomy, long‑term care, family life, working time, and caregiving time. In this sense, care is one of the great maturity tests of the welfare state.

Talking about care is talking about rights

The study presented by CENIE proposes placing care at the center of public debate through a dual lens: legal and economic. It does not merely state that care matters; it provides a framework, evidence, diagnosis, and proposals to move toward a fairer, smarter, and more humane system.

Because talking about care also means talking about rights, equality, social cohesion, territory, and the future. It means asking which rights must be protected, which responsibilities must be shared, which inequalities must be corrected, and what level of social investment is needed so that care stops being a silent burden and becomes a basic infrastructure of well‑being.

An Iberian perspective within the IBERLONGEVA framework

The presentation made it possible to situate the study within the logic of IBERLONGEVA, a project promoting Iberian and European cooperation to address, from the territories, some of the major challenges associated with demographic change. In this context, the work on Spain will be complemented by a specific study on Portugal, led by the Conselho Económico e Social, with the aim of bringing both diagnoses into dialogue and building a more complete Iberian perspective on the challenge of care in long‑lived societies.

This comparative dimension is key: long‑lived societies do not only need national diagnoses, but cross‑learning, shared evidence, and adaptable solutions. Longevity is lived in specific territories, but the challenge is common.

From diagnosis to public conversation

The event at the Círculo de Bellas Artes was designed to open public conversation and broaden perspectives: context, international outlook, study results, social dialogue, and institutional reflection. Participants included Carmen Hernández, Deputy Director‑General for European Territorial Cooperation; Jacek Barszczewski, from the OECD; professors Ignacio Álvarez and Jorge Uxó, co‑directors of the study; Rosa Martínez, Secretary of State for Social Rights; Luís Pais Antunes, president of Portugal’s Conselho Económico e Social; Brenda Navarro, writer, sociologist and economist; and Pablo Bustinduy, Minister of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and the 2030 Agenda.

The presence of diverse profiles was not a protocol detail; it was consistent with the study’s central idea. Care is not only healthcare. It is not only social. It is not only familial. It is a national architecture that cuts across the economy, culture, rights, employment, and community organization.

A civilizational conclusion

With this presentation, CENIE reinforces its commitment to a vision of longevity understood not as a threat, but as an opportunity to rethink institutions, public policies, and forms of social organization. A mature society is not the one that lives the longest, but the one that responds best when a person needs support — and the one that ensures that such support is provided with dignity.

Care must be a public priority, a foundation of equality, a form of social investment, and a condition of dignity. It is not a secondary matter or an auxiliary service: it is one of the pillars of the long‑lived societies we aspire to build.

If care is the great maturity test of a long‑lived society, what should change first: the funding, the organization of the system, or the social culture that still considers it “a family matter”?