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For forty years, gender studies have shown how domestic tasks are crucial and essential for the functioning of the economic system and for social well-being. However, care work, both in the domestic sphere and in general, has only been specifically addressed in the last ten to fifteen years. One explanation for this "discovery" of care work is the tension arising from the new roles women have assumed in the labor market since the late 20th century and the increased outsourcing of care outside the family (Carrasquer, 2013). The convergence of different schools of thought on the subject, or what has been termed "the conceptual turn in care" (Pineda, 2019), has also played a role. Although care work is currently a widely explored subject of study in the social sciences, and not only from a gender perspective, there is no single, fully developed, and universally agreed-upon theoretical concept of care. Instead, conceptualizations and empirical studies persist, each focusing on one of its aspects: labor, ethics, or politics. There are divergences surrounding its definition, and research stems from diverse approaches, prioritizing certain aspects without encompassing the entirety of care. These conceptual differences are primarily observed in the emphasis placed on relational or bonding aspects within the definition, which raises questions about its connection to the concept of work (Himmelweit, 2011), the relationship between work and the ethics of care (Arango Gaviria & Molinier, 2011), the concept of dependency, and the professionalization of care (Carrasquer, 2013).

Recently, analyses and empirical research from academia on the topic of care have expanded significantly: development of new concepts such as the social organization of care, studies on the configuration of the demand and supply of care, research on the links between female migration and care, analyses of public policies, studies on care practices in different generations, cultural diversity and the risk of the imposition of hegemonies regarding the "ought to be" of care, surveys on social representations of care, care in cities (Rico and Segovia, 2017), care in social security (Marco, Giacometti, Pautassi and Huertas, 2019), among many others.

The emergence of the concept of social care It was highly significant as an analytical framework for care. British academics (Daly and Lewis, 2000) developed it theoretically and proposed it as a heuristic category for analyzing women's contribution to well-being. In Latin America, as well as on other continents, this approach began to be widely used and was translated as the social organization of care, similar to Razavi's well-being diamond (Razavi, 2007; Evens, Pilj, and Ungerson, 1994). Following Esquivel (2014), the concept allows for an analysis applied to the countries of the region. Despite the significant economic, social, and political differences among the countries of the region, the concept of the social organization of care is equally powerful.

In our region, there are neither public policies nor a consolidated care system, but rather incipient and uncoordinated actions. In other words, these actions do not constitute a clear offering of care provision mechanisms that could be termed a care system, as has been used in European countries and in the literature from that region. Furthermore, the few existing actions are segmented in their access. Moreover, the State's role as a redistributor of resources frequently reproduces gender inequalities. Therefore, policies regarding time, money, and services are not universal; instead, there is a package of cash transfer policies that reproduces the sexual division of labor (Faur, 2014). This segmentation means that we cannot speak of a single, monolithic care system, but rather of a social organization of care defined as a "dynamic configuration of care services provided by different institutions, and the way in which households and their members benefit from them" (Faur, 2014). It is therefore the way in which families, the State, the market and community organizations are interrelated in a changing manner to produce care.

This concept allows us to interrelate the micro view (everyday relationships) and the macro view (level of the providers) proposed by Daly and Lewis (2011), so that the gender norms that associate women with care are articulated with the ways in which the State assigns responsibilities to different agents (Esquivel, 2014).

Multiple empirical studies conducted in the region (Faur, 2009; Esquivel, 2011; Rodriguez Enriquez, 2013; Lupica, 2014; Salvador, 2011; Batthyány, Genta, and Scavino, 2018, among many others) demonstrate that social care organizations exhibit an unequal distribution, with care responsibilities falling primarily on households and women, and also serving as a mechanism for reproducing inequalities. These studies also highlight the undervaluation of care work and the people who provide it, whether in homes or in community or public settings. Therefore, they demonstrate how the current economic system and national development projects depend on a free or inexpensive supply of care provided by families and women.

This is the product of several factors that occur simultaneously: the persistent sexual division of labor, the dynamics of relational responsibilities and the ethics of care, the naturalization of women as caregivers, the scarce institutional developments of the region's welfare regimes and the great economic inequalities (Faur, 2009).

Special mention should be made of the elaborations on the right to care, to care and to receive care, both because of their impact on national and international legislation, and because they are a regional contribution (Pautassi, 2007; 2010; Montaño, 2010).

The link between care and migration has been extensively studied in various regions. Thus, through conceptual elements such as global care chains (Hochschild, 2000; Orozco, 2007) or the circulation of care (Baldassar and Merla, 2014), the circumstances in which migrant mothers perform long-distance care work for their children who have remained in their country of origin have been analyzed, reinforcing multiple inequalities of gender, class, and ethnicity, among others.

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The changes experienced in recent years in Latin American societies regarding female participation in the labor market, the aging process, and family transformations invite us to reflect on the social organization of care in changing contexts.

Furthermore, since 2010, the region has implemented various public responses, such as the national care system in Uruguay and Costa Rica, legislative reforms in several countries, particularly regarding leave policies, and judicial activism, among others. In this regard, it is important to analyze these experiences to develop public policy recommendations and advocacy strategies within the public sphere.

The aforementioned advances necessitate the establishment of a space for debate, exchange, and academic reflection conceived from a regional perspective. In recent years, connections have begun to form among various researchers working on this topic, who have met at different conferences and seminars in the region, including ALAS, ALAST, and LASA, among others.

In 2018, the Gender Sociology Group, established more than 20 years ago in the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, UDELAR, organized a Regional Congress called “Latin American Perspectives on Care: First Latin American Congress of Gender and Care Studies,” in which the need to establish a Latin American Network of Gender and Care Studies was raised in order to forge links between researchers in the region.

The formation of a CLACSO Group is an opportunity to solidify the Latin American network and thus promote the exchange and deepening of comparative studies among the countries of the region.