The paper proposes to take into account the whole spectrum of care occupations: a set of inter-dependent activities essential for the maintenance and development of life and a fundamental support for social organisation. It also attempts to draw attention to a vicious circle that has been taking place in Italy for some time: structural disinvestment in care work, the conse-quences of which affect the quality of working conditions (as well as the quality of services offered to citizens), triggering processes of abandonment in the individual search for better working and living conditions, with a further deterioration in the conditions of remaining and a more general increase in inequalities between workers and the impoverishment of the sector as a whole.