The Invisible Economy of Care: Why Guajira Must Recognize the Unpaid Labor Sustaining Its Households

Main Facts

In the sun-scorched landscapes of La Guajira, Colombia, a silent economic engine operates around the clock without a single peso changing hands. Thousands of women—mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and daughters—carry the invisible burden of unpaid care work, sustaining households, tending to children, supporting the elderly, and nursing family members with disabilities.

While care work is universally recognized as the bedrock of human society, its toll in regions like La Guajira is disproportionately heavy, compounding structural poverty, geographic isolation, and historical abandonment. Recent national metrics highlight a staggering reality: unpaid care work in Colombia accounted for COP 340.5 trillion in 2024, representing 19.9% of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Yet, despite being the single largest economic activity in the country, it remains absent from official payrolls, corporate balance sheets, and regional development plans.

The crisis of care in La Guajira is not merely a private family matter; it is a profound public policy failure. Women across the department face punishing daily routines that stretch far beyond standard labor laws. A Wayuu mother in the Upper Guajira must trek miles under punishing heat simply to secure water before she can even begin cooking. A caregiver in Fonseca or Dibulla loses an entire day navigating broken infrastructure just to secure a 40-minute therapy session for a disabled child.

This deep-rooted inequality has galvanized a call to action among regional leaders and civil society advocates, who argue that local authorities possess the legal tools to transform the landscape of care—if only they choose to use them.

Chronology of Legislative and Policy Milestones

The national framework surrounding care work has undergone significant evolution, creating legal pathways that regional governments can—and must—leverage to protect caregivers.

• 2018: The last official departmental census regarding persons with disabilities in La Guajira is recorded, registering 14,322 individuals. Since then, thousands of families have fallen into a statistical vacuum, lacking state visibility or targeted support.
• February 2025: The National Government issues CONPES Document 4143, marking the first comprehensive national policy recognizing the fundamental right to care and to receive care. Crucially, the policy incorporates the ancestral care practices of Indigenous peoples and peasant communities.
• May 2025: Congress passes Law 2456, establishing national, departmental, and municipal funds dedicated to supporting individuals with disabilities and their primary caregivers. These funds are legally mandated to finance economic transfers, technical aids, professional training, income-generation projects, and mental health services for caregivers.
• February 2026: The Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF) takes a historic step by directly issuing indefinite contracts to 161 community mothers in La Guajira. Operating primarily in dispersed rural areas and among Wayuu communities, these women secure formal labor rights for the first time, though thousands of other caregivers remain entirely unprotected.
• August 2026: Decree 0996 is officially enacted, fully regulating the operational framework of the national care fund established under Law 2456, providing local governments with the administrative roadmap to disburse resources directly to vulnerable families.

Supporting Data and Economic Dimensions

The economic weight of care work is staggering, yet its human cost is even higher. According to recent data from the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) spanning September 2024 to August 2025, the gender divide in domestic and care labor remains cavernous.

• National Time Use: Colombian women dedicate an average of 7 hours and 35 minutes daily to unpaid care work, compared to just 3 hours and 14 minutes for men.
• Ethnic Disparities: Among Indigenous and Afro-descendant women, the daily average exceeds 8 hours.
• Caribbean Regional Reality: In the Caribbean region, the disparity widens further. Women spend an average of 8 hours and 8 minutes per day on unpaid labor, while men average 2-hours and 49-minutes.
• The Guajira Calculation: For a typical caregiver in La Guajira, labor accumulates to 8 hours daily—translating to 56 hours a week, and exceeding 2,900 hours a year without a salary, formal rest, or social security.
• Macroeconomic Impact: Valued at COP 340.5 trillion (19.9% of the national GDP), unpaid care work dwarfs traditional economic sectors like manufacturing, mining, and finance, functioning as an invisible subsidy propping up the formal economy.

Despite these national figures, a systemic review of La Guajira’s departmental archives reveals a glaring omission: there is currently no departmental system of care established by ordinance, nor are there localized time-use surveys for the department’s specific municipalities.

Official Responses and Institutional Standstills

While national legislative momentum has accelerated through CONPES 4143, Law 2456, and Decree 0996, the response at the departmental level in La Guajira has been characterized by institutional inertia.

Local advocates and social researchers point out that while Bogotá has provided the legal architecture, the departmental government has failed to translate these mandates into local ordinances or budgetary allocations. The Departmental Secretariat of Health and Social Welfare has faced criticism for failing to update the registry of persons with disabilities, relying instead on outdated 2018 figures that leave thousands of vulnerable households unmapped and unserved.

Although isolated national interventions—such as the ICBF’s contracting of 161 community mothers—represent vital milestones, they barely scratch the surface of a systemic crisis. Representatives of disabled persons’ organizations and women’s advocacy groups have repeatedly petitioned the departmental assembly to establish the local mechanisms mandated by Law 2456. To date, however, municipal and departmental authorities have not deployed the necessary administrative teams to draft ordnances, establish local care funds, or operationalize mobile support units.

Implications and a Six-Point Action Plan for La Guajira

The failure to recognize and alleviate unpaid care work carries devastating long-term implications. Caregivers—disproportionately women—routinely sacrifice their education, professional careers, and financial independence. Chronic exhaustion, nutritional neglect, and untreated mental and physical illnesses are standard occupational hazards for women who prioritize the survival of dependents over their own well-being. A society that fails to count these hours effectively guarantees the systemic neglect of those who need care the most.

To correct this historic injustice, regional experts have outlined a pragmatic, six-point action plan that the departmental government of La Guajira can implement immediately without waiting for new legislation:

1. Establish a Departmental System of Care: Create, via departmental ordinance, an official System of Care featuring dedicated administrative management, measurable annual targets, and a clearly identified budget line.
2. Launch the Departmental Fund (Law 2456): Operationalize the local fund mandated by national legislation, ensuring direct representation for organizations representing persons with disabilities, caregivers, and traditional Wayuu authorities.
3. Conduct Comprehensive Demographic Mapping: Partner with DANE and regional universities to execute a door-to-door census of caregivers across all 15 municipalities to identify who they are, who they care for, and what specific resources they lack.
4. Deploy Disability Certification Brigadas: Dispatch mobile medical teams across all 15 municipalities—with absolute priority given to rural zones and remote rancherías—to certify disabilities. Without official certification and registration, vulnerable families remain locked out of state funds and technical aid.
5. Co-Create a Culturally Appropriate Wayuu Care Model: Collaborate directly with traditional Indigenous authorities to design a culturally sensitive care model, fully aligned with the mandates of CONPES 4143.
6. Implement Mobile Care Units: Roll out mobile support units equipped to reach remote settlements with physical therapies, legal orientation, psychosocial support, and—crucially—respite hours that afford primary caregivers a much-needed period of rest.

The tools are already within the Gobernación’s reach. What is required is not a new law, but political will. Until La Guajira officially counts, values, and protects the thousands of hours its women spend in silence, the foundation of its society will continue to rest on the uncompensated exhaustion of its mothers, daughters, and sisters.