Care is required by all, but when public care provision is absent, it is only the better-off who can resort to private care services. They include direct provision of care services or subsidies to access them, payments to hire care workers, regulations, and complementary service provision such as transportation, water and sanitation, and energy. Care policies serve a range of different objectives, including poverty reduction, enhanced women’s labour force participation, employment creation and the expansion of future generations’ human capabilities. Because care policies mould the ways in which care is provided and funded, and can determine who provides and receives care, they have the potential to contribute to gender equality and mitigate other dimensions of inequality such as class, caste, ethnicity or sexual orientation.