80% of informal care in the European Union is provided by women.

Error detected

The claim states that 80% of informal care is provided by women, but available evidence shows the actual figure is approximately 59-66%. The 80% statistic refers to the proportion of all long-term care that is informal — a separate metric. The difference between the claimed 80% and the actual ~59-66% exceeds 10 percentage points.

Omissions

• The speaker conflates two distinct statistics: 80% is the share of all long-term care that is informal, while the share of informal care performed by women is approximately 59-66%.
• The Eurocarers data (2024) indicates significant variation across EU member states, ranging from 52% in Romania to 65-66% in Czechia, Lithuania and Poland — the EU average masks considerable national differences.
• The data refers to the proportion of informal carers who are women rather than the proportion of care hours provided. Since women tend to provide more intensive informal care (more hours per week), the share of care hours provided by women may be somewhat higher than the 59% figure for share of carers, but still substantially below 80%.
• No single primary official source (Eurostat or EIGE) providing the exact gender breakdown of informal care provision was directly accessed within the search limit, though multiple independent secondary sources converge on the 59-66% range.

Sources

• PrimaryEuropean Commission (EU Funding & Tenders Portal)Informal carers provide 80% of all care in Europe, with women carrying two-thirds of this responsibility.
• SecondaryEurocarersOn average in the EU, 59% of all informal carers (age 18 or over) are women, ranging from 52% (RO) to 65-66% (CZ, LT, PL). Across Europe, as much as 80% of all care is provided by informal carers, with women providing the lion's share of care.
• SecondaryAGE Platform EuropeAn estimated 80% of long-term care is provided by unpaid informal carers, a majority (59%) performed by women, especially in some EU countries.