This contribution has been submitted by European Large Families Confederation (ELFAC) in response to the European Commission’s Call for Evidence on the EU Action Plan for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in EU External Action 2028–2034 (GAP IV).
ELFAC strongly supports the European Union’s continued leadership in promoting gender equality as a fundamental human right and as a driver of sustainable development, social cohesion, and economic growth.
ELFAC calls for the GAP IV to:
- Integrate demographic sustainability into gender equality policies
- Recognise, protect and support motherhood and caregiving and address the unequal distribution of care responsibilities
- Acknowledge and support families with 3 and more children (large families) as key contributors to demographic sustainability
- Balance EU funding priorities to ensure direct support for:
- organisations representing and supporting mothers and families with children
- associations advocating against discrimination linked to motherhood
I. First, GAP IV should explicitly recognise that demographic sustainability depends on women’s real capacity to become mothers and to have the number of children they desire. Demographic decline is a systemic problem across all EU countries, with significant implications for economic sustainability, labour markets, intergenerational solidarity, and social protection systems. Across Europe, fertility rates remain below replacement levels due to structural constraints that limit women’s capacity to realise their family aspirations.
According to the United Nations, more than half of the world’s countries now have fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. In Europe, this trend is even more pronounced: data from Eurostat shows that the total fertility rate in the European Union fell to 1.34 in 2024.
In this context, mothers, and particularly those who choose to have more children, are central contributors to demographic balance and long-term societal sustainability. Families with three or more children already play a disproportionate role in sustaining population renewal. Yet, despite this critical contribution, motherhood—especially in larger families—remains insufficiently recognised, supported, and protected within current policy frameworks.
GAP IV should therefore:
- recognise motherhood as a public good in its policy framework,
- include demographic indicators in monitoring gender equality outcomes,
- and assess the impact of policies on family formation and fertility choices.
II. GAP IV should address the fact that economic systems depend on unpaid care work predominantly carried out by women.
Women perform the overwhelming majority of unpaid care work, which remains the invisible foundation of labour markets and social systems. According to the International Labour Organization, women represent 76.2% of total unpaid care work globally, more than three times as much as men. This unequal distribution places a disproportionate burden on women, significantly limiting their access to employment, reducing lifetime earnings, and increasing the economic and professional cost of motherhood.
This structural imbalance is even more pronounced for mothers in large families, where care responsibilities are both more intensive and extended over longer periods. As a result, these mothers face cumulative disadvantages, including repeated career interruptions, reduced working hours, and limited opportunities for re-entry into stable employment.
GAP IV should:
- include care infrastructure as a core pillar of economic empowerment,
- promote policies that reduce and redistribute unpaid care work,
- and require that gender equality programmes assess the impact of care responsibilities on women’s participation.
III. GAP IV should address the structural imbalance of the costs of raising future generations by women
While societies depend on the contribution of children as future workers, taxpayers, and citizens, the financial, social, and time-related costs of raising them are borne disproportionately by families—and within families, primarily by women. Estimates indicate that unpaid care work represents a substantial share of economic value, reaching up to 9% of global GDP (approximately USD 11 trillion) when monetized, yet this contribution remains largely invisible in national accounts and policy frameworks.
This structural imbalance is particularly visible in large families, where the cumulative cost of raising multiple children—housing, education, healthcare, and time investment—is significantly higher, while public support mechanisms rarely scale proportionally. As a result, mothers of large families face a higher risk of economic vulnerability despite their substantial contribution to society.
IV. GAP IV should balance EU funding priorities to ensure direct and targeted support for organisations representing mothers and families with children, as well as associations addressing discrimination linked to motherhood.
Targeted investment in organisations that support mothers and families enhances the effectiveness of gender equality policies, by addressing structural barriers at the community level and ensuring that policy commitments translate into tangible and sustainable outcomes.GAP IV should therefore:
GAP IV should therefore:
• establish dedicated funding mechanisms for organisations supporting mothers and families with children,
• prioritise support for initiatives addressing discrimination linked to motherhood, including employment barriers and the motherhood penalty,
• and ensure monitoring of the allocation and impact of funding directed toward organisations working with mothers and families.