The European Care Strategy (communication adopted in September 2022) focuses on EU action to provide high quality accessible and affordable care services for children and people in need of long-term care, and to support decent working conditions for care workers.

For long-term care, policy measures include:

• Developing sustainable long-term care that ensures better and more affordable access to quality services.
• Ensuring adequate social protection for long-term care needs - investing in care services, the improvement of working conditions in the sector, an alleviation of the burden on informal carers.

Revision of the Barcelona targets on early childhood care and education:

• Increase participation in affordable, accessible, and quality early childhood education and care, by revising the Barcelona targets.
• The revised 2030 Barcelona targets, adopted in 2022 under the Care Strategy, are now being operationalised. Member States are working towards at least 45 % participation for children under 3 and 96 % for those aged 3 to compulsory school age. In 2024, the Council adopted the first set of country-specific recommendations on care under the European Semester. 

The European Commission’s Care Workforce Initiative brings together EU- and Member State-level actions to address persistent health and care workforce shortages and to support the delivery of high-quality, accessible and affordable care services. It focuses on strengthening workforce planning, improving working conditions, supporting skills development, and boosting retention and attractiveness of care professions.

Key strands include:

• European Care Guarantee (policy direction): advancing a long-term approach to ensure access to affordable, quality healthcare and care services across the life course.
• Health workforce planning and surveillance: supporting Member States to improve workforce data, forecasting and planning structures, including cross-border workforce considerations.
• Social dialogue for care: engaging employers and trade unions in developing transformative care strategies and more resilient health and care systems.
• Capacity-enhancing innovation: promoting new technologies, digital tools and service reorganisation models to help address shortages while improving quality of care and job design.
• Support for nurses (EC–WHO/Europe Agreement): targeted support to help Member States retain nurses and make the profession more attractive, including cooperation with international partners.

Together, these elements are intended to strengthen Europe’s capacity to deliver sustainable care systems and to underpin progress on work–life balance and access to quality care.

The Council Recommendation on High-quality Early Childhood Education and Care Systems offer guidance to

• Work towards accessible, affordable, and inclusive ECEC to support physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive development of children, taking into account the barriers faced by families, particularly those in disadvantaged situations
• Promote further integration of ECEC in the education continuum.
• Promote transparent and coherent monitoring and evaluation of ECEC, together with adequate funding and a legal framework.

The Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 sets out a vision, policy objectives and actions to make concrete progress on gender equality in Europe and towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Measures include:

• Enforce pay transparency measures to ensure that women and men receive equal pay for the same work and for work of equal value, now underpinned by the Pay Transparency Directive (adopted 2023, to be transposed by June 2026).
• Transpose and implement EU-rules on work-life balance for women and men's work in practice and equal uptake of family leaves and flexible working arrangements.
• Invest in childcare services and implement the EU Child Guarantee to provide high quality and affordable services.
• Adopt EU-wide targets on gender balance in all work sectors, in corporate boards and in politics. In 2024, the Gender Equality Strategy was extended and aligned with the new Commission’s post-2025 gender-equality agenda, keeping work–life balance and care infrastructure as priorities

The European Parliament's resolution on telework and the Right to Disconnect calls on the European Commission to adopt a legislation to protect workers' right not to engage in work-related activities outside working time, by means of electronic communication tools.

It should entitle workers to switch off work-related tools and not to respond to employers' requests outside working time, with no risk of adverse consequences.

Following this resolution, the Commission launched first-stage consultations with EU social partners in April 2024 and second-stage consultations in July 2025 on possible minimum EU-level rules on telework and the right to disconnect.

The Directive on adequate minimum wages entered into force in 2022 and had to be transposed by November 2024. It promotes adequate statutory minimum wages and collective bargaining coverage in Member States, improving working and living conditions. By 2025, most Member States finalised its transposition and set up monitoring mechanisms. The Directive is particularly relevant for workers in care and social services, who remain among the lowest-paid sectors.

The European Semester Social Convergence Framework (operational since 2024) introduces systematic monitoring of social indicators, including gender employment and care-related gaps, integrating Principle 9 into the EU’s main economic-governance cycle and funding priorities.