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European Federation for Services to Individuals

EFSI

The European Federation for Services to Individuals (EFSI) represents the Personal and Household Services’ (PHS) sector at the European level.

Lobbying Activity

Response to The new Action Plan on the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights

10 Sept 2025

EFSI welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the consultation on the new Action Plan for the European Pillar of Social Rights. Together with several civil society organisations, we call for an ambitious approach to Principle 18 on long-term care. The Action Plan must strengthen rights-based, person-centred, and affordable care, support informal carers, invest in the workforce, and ensure quality through sustainable funding and social dialogue. Our attached joint statement outlines detailed recommendations for a European Care Deal and a Long-Term Care Platform to make this ambition a reality.
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Meeting with Eva Schultz (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu) and UNI Europa and

21 May 2025 · Meeting on personal and household services

Meeting with Rudi Kennes (Member of the European Parliament) and European Federation for Family Employment & Home Care- Fédération européenne des emplois de la famille

12 Dec 2024 · Labour rights of domestic workers

Meeting with Miriam Lexmann (Member of the European Parliament)

17 Oct 2024 · Carers sector

Meeting with Estelle Ceulemans (Member of the European Parliament)

12 Sept 2024 · Dossiers EMPL à venir

Response to Strengthening social dialogue

20 Oct 2022

The feedback from the European Federation for Services to Individuals (EFSI) can be found in the attached document.
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Response to Proposal for a Council Recommendation on long-term care

29 Mar 2022

This contribution is submitted on behalf of EFSI, the representative of the Personal and Household Services’ (PHS) sector at the European level. Actively operating in 21 EU Member States, it gathers PHS providers and companies, national associations, and employers’ organizations, involved in the advancement of the personal and household services. EFSI first and foremost underlines that, to address the existing issues and challenges highlighted in the roadmap, all an any action regarding the EU Care Strategy must include the PHS sector. Indeed, as highlighted by the ILO, incorporating the PHS workers within the care workforce is paramount. Care giving not only embodies personal care but also incorporates non-relational, indirect care work, that allows for the necessary arrangement of personal caregiving. It includes both direct services, essentially related to personal assistance as well as indirect services, comprising daily living activities. The former – so-called “care-related services” – represents 53% of the provided PHS and includes childcare, early childhood education and care (ECEC), long-term care in situations of invalidity, disability, or dependence and the elderly peoples’ care. The latter – so-called “household support services” – represents 47% of the service provision and consists of activities such as ironing, cleaning, gardening, maintenance, etc. In the same line of thinking, EFSI considers that a more human-centered approach to care is required to adequately respond to the challenges of the care sector. In this sense, it should consider both the care providers and the care recipients. Therefore, in the document attached, EFSI issues several recommendations in order to translate the objectives of the European Care Strategy into concrete actions.
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Meeting with Astrid Dentler (Cabinet of Vice-President Dubravka Šuica) and European Federation for Family Employment & Home Care- Fédération européenne des emplois de la famille

25 Nov 2020 · - Personal and household services - Ageing - Work-life balance - Care drain

Meeting with Nora Bednarski (Cabinet of Commissioner Helena Dalli)

24 Nov 2020 · Exchange of views on current topics

Meeting with Andrea Nahles (Cabinet of Commissioner Nicolas Schmit) and EuroCommerce and

19 Oct 2020 · Social dialogue

Meeting with Ruth Paserman (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis)

7 Jul 2020 · Support to personal household services

Meeting with Ana Carla Pereira (Cabinet of Commissioner Nicolas Schmit)

2 Mar 2020 · European Pillar of Social Rights

Meeting with Astrid Dentler (Cabinet of Vice-President Dubravka Šuica), Vesna Loncaric (Cabinet of Vice-President Dubravka Šuica)

17 Feb 2020 · - Personal Household Services in the context of work-life balance - Recognition, funding, skills, and digital solutions related to Personal Household Services - International initiatives relating to domestic services - Demographic developments in the sector of Personal Household Services, “care drain”

Response to Gender equality in the EU

6 Feb 2020

The European Federation of Services to Individuals is the voice of the Personal and Household Services (PHS) industry at European level. It represents employers’ organisations, PHS providers and companies involved in the development of PHS, currently operating in 21 EU Member States. The PHS sector covers a broad range of both care and domestic services. Taking stock of the High-Level Conference on Gender Equality hosted by the Croatian Presidency of the Council, EFSI acknowledges the two main challenges identified in the field of women employment: gender segregation and insufficient care services. Such challenges perfectly apply to PHS. Firstly, the sector is highly feminized, with a female employment rate of over 90%. Secondly, care responsibilities are unequally distributed, since women remain responsible for most of the self-produced domestic and care work (76.2%). In this context, EFSI suggests a dual approach on PHS development towards increased gender equality, with measures targeting: Working women: The provision of quality, affordable and accessible PHS fosters women’s empowerment. It is pivotal to guarantee work-life balance, to foster women’s participation in the labour market and to reduce precariousness in women employment. In this context, EFSI urges to extend the scope of the work-life balance package to broadly include both domestic and care services. EFSI also invites the Commission to encourage fiscal incentives for PHS, beyond mere allowances. The latter could indeed have a countereffect, discouraging working mothers from re-entering the labour market and accordingly perpetrating the gender stereotypes related to care responsibilities. PHS women workers: overall, the PHS sector deserves more recognition given the crucial social importance of domestic workers (DW)’s contributions in light of current demographic changes. More recognition from public authorities would encourage DW to develop a professional identity, therefore, to join sectoral organisations. From a gender perspective and given the high rate of women employed in the PHS sector, increased social representation would reduce the gender pay and pension gaps. Furthermore, it would also foster decent working conditions, crucial to make the sector more attractive for both men and women and reduce gender segregation. In this context, EFSI urges to implement the following measures targeting all DW regardless of their employment contract: social protection for all DW, prevention of occupational risks and training programmes to increase service quality. It is also important to highlight the high share of (undocumented) migrant workers in the sector, mainly intra and extra-European women, which are at greater risks of precariousness and deserve special attention. To tackle the multi-dimension of vulnerability, EFSI urges to ratify the ILO Convention 189 on domestic work and invites the Commission to list all legal issues blocking the process of ratification in some Member States Finally, EFSI encourages to deploy all available EU Instruments to achieve a more gender-balanced society, also by supporting feminized sectors: social investment through adequate funding (e.g. ESF+), targeted CSRs in the framework of the EU Semester, the implementation of the European Social Pillar principles, especially in the area of care, and related monitoring through appropriate gender-disaggregated indicators. With reference to childcare, EFSI also suggests revising and implementing the Barcelona targets on Early Childhood Education and Care, which would not only benefit children but also families and namely mothers. In conclusion, EFSI reminds that access to PHS, when intelligently designed and sufficiently financed, has a positive impact on redistributing unpaid care work and fostering the increased participation of women in the labour market. All the above recommendations are detailed in the recent EFSI Memorandum attached.
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Meeting with Piet van Nuffel (Cabinet of Commissioner Marianne Thyssen), Vasiliki Kokkori (Cabinet of Commissioner Marianne Thyssen)

18 May 2018 · New statistical report on PHS

Meeting with Eric Mamer (Digital Economy)

14 Dec 2015 · DSM