How Do Cooperatives Ensure Accessible Healthcare & Childcare?

By Federico Parra on August 03, 2025

In the absence of state-provided social protection, workers in informal employment are creating coverage for themselves. Through organizing themselves into cooperatives and other social and solidarity economy (SSE) entities, they find ways to access the basic services that have always been available to their counterparts in formal employment – and that would be out of their reach as individuals.

Cooperatives meet their members’ needs for healthcare, childcare centres near places of work, pensions and occupational-risk insurance in several ways. They develop the services themselves, facilitate access to existing public or private services, facilitate access to services already offered by other SSE entities, or create services that can be used alongside existing services.

These examples – from the Self-Employed Women’s Association of India (SEWA), the Social Protection Scheme for Workers in the Informal Sector (MUPROSI) in Togo, and the Unión de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores de la Economía Popular (UTEP) in Argentina – show how cooperatives in different geographic regions are meeting their members’ needs in the areas of healthcare and childcare.

WUNRN

WIEGO – Women in Informal Employment

How Do Cooperatives Ensure Accessible Healthcare and Childcare for Workers? – WIEGO