WICARE aims to improve expertise concerning wages and working conditions in the social services sector in the European Union, and to discuss its results in the European trade union movement. Within the social services WICARE covers two sub-sectors: residential care activities and social work activities without accommodation.

The justification of WICARE is grounded in the general lack of information concerning the wages and working conditions in the social services sector across EU member states and the need felt by EPSU, the EPSU Working Group on Social Services, and the affiliated trade unions to have more adequate, comparative information at their disposal on behalf of their co-ordinated bargaining strategies. By means of a large-scale survey, WICARE aims to conduct cross-country analyses comparing wages, working conditions, occupational structures and skills, and workers' representation in the social services sector at large and its sub-sectors. WICARE focuses on 24 EU member states: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. The large-scale survey will be undertaken as part of the continuous Wagelndicator web survey, including a print version of the web survey, distributed widely among EPSU affiliates, targeting at the workforces in these 24 EU member states.

Researchers at CELSI: Marta Kahancová, Brian Fabo, Michal Mudroň, Mária Sedláková