Background
As the lead UN entity on gender equality and secretariat of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, we shift laws, institutions, social behaviours and services to close the gender gap and build an equal world for all women and girls. Our partnerships with governments, women’s movements and the private sector coupled with our coordination of the broader United Nations translate progress into lasting changes. We make strides forward for women and girls in four areas: leadership, economic empowerment, freedom from violence, and women, peace and security as well as humanitarian action. UN Women keeps the rights of women and girls at the centre of global progress – always, everywhere. Because gender equality is not just what we do. It is who we are.
Care is a fundamental component of economic and social systems and is essential to the well-being of individuals, societies, economies, and ecosystems. It encompasses both paid and unpaid activities that sustain people and the planet across the life course, ranging from caring for oneself and others to protecting the environment. Everyone requires care at different stages of life, making strong, inclusive, and accessible care systems critical for equal participation in society and the realization of dignity and well-being. Care involves “caring about, taking care of, caregiving, and care receiving,” and includes the support necessary for individuals to live autonomously and fully in society. Yet social norms and gender stereotypes continue to place responsibility for care disproportionately on women, reinforcing a gendered division of labour and contributing to the persistent undervaluation of this essential work in economic planning and public policy.
Care is a public good and a core element of social and economic infrastructure, as essential to economic functioning as transport, energy, and digital systems. Responsibility for care must be shared across the care diamond, the State, the private sector, communities and households, rather than falling predominantly on households, particularly women and girls. When care systems are weak, underfunded, or inaccessible, the costs are disproportionately borne by women and girls in the form of time poverty, reduced employment opportunities, and heightened vulnerability. By contrast, strong care infrastructure, comprising care services (such as healthcare, early childhood development centres, services for older persons, and support for persons with disabilities) and basic physical infrastructure (including piped water, electricity, sanitation, and public transport), creates and maintains environments that support both care recipients and caregivers. Investing in this infrastructure is critical to delivering quality care, redistributing unpaid direct care work more equitably between households, the State and the market, and between women and men, girls and boys, and reducing labour‑intensive indirect care (such as collecting water, cooking, washing, and cleaning). Reframing care as infrastructure moves it from being viewed as social expenditure to a strategic investment with measurable economic and social returns.
UN Women promotes a gender-transformative approach to care grounded in the “5R” framework: Recognize, Reduce, Redistribute, Reward, and Represent. This approach calls for recognizing care as work and integrating it into data collection and policy frameworks; reducing the intensity and time burden of unpaid care through improved infrastructure and services; redistributing care responsibilities more equitably between the State, private sector, community and households, as well as within households between women and men; rewarding paid care work through decent wages, skills development, and social protection; and ensuring that care workers and care recipients are meaningfully represented in decision-making processes. Together, these principles provide a comprehensive foundation for building inclusive, sustainable, and rights-based care systems.
Climate change further amplifies the urgency of addressing care inequalities. Environmental degradation, water scarcity, and climate-related shocks disproportionately increase unpaid care and domestic work, particularly for women in rural and vulnerable communities. Without resilient and accessible care services, climate adaptation efforts risk exacerbating existing gender inequalities. Integrating care considerations into climate policies and investments—by ensuring continuity of care services during crises, reducing domestic burdens through climate-resilient infrastructure, and supporting women as agents of adaptation—strengthens both social and environmental resilience.
In this context, UN Women seeks to engage a consultant to review, validate and further develop a national situation (landscape) analysis of the care economy in Armenia. UN Women will provide the consultant with completed analytical products, including the inception report, desk review summary, annotated bibliography, stakeholder mapping and matrix, policy, legal and institutional mapping and gap analysis, and draft analysis, together with interview transcripts and other available raw material. As the first stage of the assignment, the consultant will assess these materials for accuracy, completeness and internal consistency, verify that findings are supported by the underlying evidence, and identify issues requiring clarification or further analysis. Building on the validated materials, the analysis will provide a comprehensive overview of key data and statistics on the care landscape in the country at both rural and urban levels, existing care policies, services, infrastructure and institutional arrangements, and the distribution of care responsibilities across the care diamond. It will consolidate and strengthen the available evidence, address gaps or inconsistencies identified through the initial review, and identify needs and opportunities for strengthening Armenia’s care system and informing targeted, gender-responsive policy and programmatic interventions.
This work is part of “Women’s Economic Empowerment in the South Caucasus” WEESC project which is implemented with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC). The overarching goal of the project is to ensure that women, particularly the poor and socially excluded, in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are economically empowered and participate in relevant decision-making. To reach this goal, WEESC applies a holistic approach, enabling linked interventions at three levels: grassroots, policies and legislation, and institutions.
The consultant will be reporting to the WEESC Project Analyst of UN Women in Armenia and will be supported by the WEE Programme Specialist, as well as UN Women’s operational staff.
Objectives of the Assignment
The assignment aims first to review and validate the completed deliverables and supporting evidence provided by UN Women, including interview transcripts and other raw material, to confirm their accuracy, completeness, consistency and evidentiary basis and to establish a reliable foundation for the subsequent analysis. Building on this validated foundation, the consultant will further develop a comprehensive understanding of paid and unpaid care work in Armenia, including existing policy and legal frameworks, service provision, financing arrangements and institutional responsibilities related to care. Guided by the purple economy and the 5R+ framework, which places care, both paid and unpaid, at the center of economic thinking, the study recognizes care as essential to sustaining societies, economies, and the well-being and autonomy of women.
Particular attention will be given to vulnerable groups supported by Ministry of Labor and Welfare programs, including single-parent households, persons with disabilities, and older persons. The analysis will assess their care needs, access to care services and social protection mechanisms, and examine how unpaid care responsibilities—especially those borne by women—affect labor market participation and economic outcomes.
Specific Objectives
- Review the interview transcripts and any additional raw material provided to ensure accuracy, completeness, and consistency with the synthesized findings.
- Verify that the data and information presented in the deliverables are fully supported by the underlying transcripts and raw material.
- Review the following completed deliverables provided by UN Women to establish exactly what is in place: Stakeholder Mapping, Stakeholder Matrix, Policy, Legal, and Institutional Mapping and Gap Analysis, Draft Analysis․
- Analyse collected available quantitative data on unpaid and paid care and domestic work in Armenia, including time-use data, labour market statistics, employment in care sectors, and social protection coverage.
- Develop two case studies illustrating regional disparities and context-specific challenges, UN Women to support and confirm the case studies to use.
- Analyse qualitative factors influencing care responsibilities, such as gender norms, social expectations, workplace culture, and access to services.
- Assess differences in care needs and care provision across the life cycle and between urban and rural areas, with attention to vulnerable and marginalized groups.
- Prepare a comprehensive national care economy landscape analysis report presenting findings, key challenges, gaps, and opportunities.
- Develop clear, evidence-based policy and programmatic recommendations to strengthen care systems in Armenia, grounded in the purple economy framework.
- Presentation of the findings through validation meeting and stakeholder consultation or review process, incorporating feedback into the final report.
Scope of Work
Duties and Responsibilities
The consultant will undertake three main tasks: (A) review and validate the existing data and information provided by UN Women, (B) add two case studies and develop the actual analysis, and (C) support the process for validation by stakeholders.
Deliverables
All provided deliverables should be in Armenian and English Languages.
Details of deliverables | Timelines | Payment Schedule
Review and validate existing documents and submit a concise analysis report Review and validate documents shared by UN Women to draft and finalize the analysis, this includes: stakeholder mapping; stakeholder matrix; policy, legal, and institutional mapping and; gap analysis. The documents provided should be cross-checked against the interview transcripts and additional raw material reviewed to ensure accuracy, completeness, and consistency with the synthesized findings. The analysis will assess the extent to which existing frameworks recognize, reduce, and redistribute unpaid care work, identify policy, legal, and implementation gaps contributing to women's disproportionate care responsibilities, and highlight good practices and promising approaches relevant to the Armenian context that promote decent work in the care sector and gender equality, grounded in the purple economy framework. | 23 October, 2026 (3 days) | 100% upon successful delivery of all activities by December 10, 2026
Draft National Care Economy Landscape Analysis Report A comprehensive draft report presenting the findings of the national landscape analysis of the care economy in Armenia. The report will include all the chapters covering analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, gender norms, care needs across the life cycle, urban–rural disparities, stakeholder mapping, and preliminary policy and programmatic recommendations grounded in the purple economy framework. In addition it will include 2 case studies. The draft will be submitted to UN Women for review and comments. | 30 October, 2026 (4 days)
Validation / Stakeholder Consultation Session Presentation of key findings and draft recommendations in a validation meeting or consultation session with relevant stakeholders to solicit feedback, ensure feasibility, and strengthen national ownership of the findings. | 20 November, 2026 (1 day)
Stakeholder Consultation Summary A concise summary documenting the validation process, key feedback received, areas of consensus and divergence, and how stakeholder inputs were reflected in the revised analysis and recommendations. | 23 November, 2026 (1 days)
Final National Care Economy Landscape Analysis Report Submit the final report incorporating UN Women’s and stakeholders’ feedback, providing clear, evidence-based, and context-specific policy and programmatic recommendations to strengthen care systems in Armenia. | 25 November, 2026 (2 days)
Consultant’s Workplace and Official Trave
[1] Facts and figures: Economic empowerment | UN Women – Headquarters [2] Facts and figures: Economic empowerment | UN Women – Headquarters
Core Values
Integrity;
- Professionalism;
- Respect for Diversity.
Core Competencies
- Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
- Accountability;
- Creative Problem Solving;
- Effective Communication;
- Inclusive Collaboration;
- Stakeholder Engagement;
- Leading by Example.
Functional Competencies
- Strong knowledge and in-depth understanding of gender equality and women’s empowerment issues, challenges and motivations in the private sector.
- Ability to organise and complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities.
- Experience establishing, building and sustaining effective relationships with the private sector partners
- Strong networking skills.
- Knowledge and expertise in gender research and policy analysis;
- Advanced analytical and problem-solving skills;
- Excellent negotiation skills;
Education
- Master’s degree or equivalent in economics is required.
- A first-level university degree in economics in combination with two additional years of qualifying professional experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced degree
Experience
- At least 7 years of relevant professional experience with a bachelor’s degree or 5 years with a master’s degree iin conducting research and studies, in socio-economic areas, gender equality, women’s rights and empowerment, and sustainable development.
- Proven experience in conducting policy analysis in the region on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
- Experience in working with government institutions.
- Experience in developing, managing, monitoring and/or evaluating programmes in care work and women’s empowerment is an asset.
Languages
- Fluency in English and Armenian is required.
Statements
In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.
Diversity and inclusion
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If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.
UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)