The health and care workforce crisis: co-benefits of gender-transformative approaches and capacities for implementation

The health and care workforce crisis and gender inequalities are interconnected, threatening healthcare and equity. We turn this 'unhealthy' connection upside down, aiming to explore how health policy can create co-benefits for gender equality and how governance can support policy implementation. A conceptual approach on SDG3 'Health' and SDG5 'Gender Equality' co-benefits served our analysis. We applied a qualitative explorative approach to identify co-benefits; following a rapid scoping review of the literature, we focus on document analysis and an illustrative case study of artificial intelligence in the health and care workforce. The literature reveals an overall lack of attention to co-benefits in research. Policy documents pay some attention to co-benefits, but primarily consider the benefits for the healthcare sector rather than for gender equality. The case of artificial intelligence illustrates that technological innovations provide opportunities for change, but to create co-benefits, they need gender-responsive and equity-based policy approaches to enhance economically effective and socially fair transformations. We discuss how transformational leadership and gender-transformative governance approaches can support implementation of co-benefits policies. Strengthening the policy and implementation of co-benefits provides novel opportunities for improving gender equality and responding to the health and care workforce crisis.