This policy brief builds on recent work on the care economy to explore implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and opportunities for addressing the burden of unpaid care work. To prevent the further deepening of gender inequality through increasingly gender-regressive responses to the pandemic, it is necessary to take account of the additional unpaid care burden placed on women and families during the pandemic. As many are now interested in making changes to their own lives, there is an opportunity for systematic change which enables care work to be valued and accounted for in economic and social policies.