Global women's health: a spotlight on caregiving.

Caregiving is a women's health issue globally, as many more women than men are informal caregivers. Caregiving related to gender role socialization, burden, and economic and health consequences has been discussed in the literature. Together this body of work demonstrates some positive but mainly negative consequences to the health and economic circumstances of women. Overall achievement of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals has important implications for informal caregivers globally, because achievement of these goals is essential to reducing the undue burden, the lost opportunities, and the injustice of health care systems that take advantage of women's volunteer caregiving.