If kin work paid just minimum wage
March 14, 2020 12:34 AM Subscribe
Women's Unpaid Labor is Worth $10,900,000,000,000 - "On Oct. 24, 1975, 90 percent of Icelandic women refused to cook, clean or look after children for a day. It brought the whole nation to a standstill." (SLNYT)
This is a huge issue in aging services (my field). Our systems for supporting older people and aging-related issues ranging from the social support of people with dementia (my specialty) to health advocacy and transportation and a thousand other needs is, in my experience, predicated on the unpaid labor of women. Health care and social services are already knowingly built on low wages for a mostly female workforce, but the dirty secret is how much we demand from family and community members to support older adults. In the US, at least, this burden falls hugely on women. Every setting I've worked in sees female relatives, usually middle-aged daughters, nieces, sisters, or just friends of the participant, bear primary responsibility for their loved one's healthcare management, financial management, financial support, transportation, social participation, end of life planning, and often feeding, toileting, dressing... so many, many things. And these are people who are already receiving my care! These are the privileged care partners.
It is a huge problem economically, emotionally and for the future. It's already impacting millennials, particularly in minority communities. It is disproportionately unfair to African American women. Many are caring for two or three generations at once!
Our field is paying attention to this burden. But the extent of our solutions seems to be 1) better training for unpaid labor; 2) better self-care for unpaid labor, 3) better emotional and social support for unpaid labor, and 4) respite breaks. There's honestly not much else we know how to do at my level of interaction; I can't waive the cost of care to relieve financial burdens (which are tremendous) or raise the cost of care to increase staffing to replace the labor of family care partners. The best I've been able to do is to speak frankly about care partner burden with care partners and encourage them to make big asks so I can try to help.
And once again, this is just trillions of burden placed on women who are caring for older people! My family includes a lot of teachers, nurses, and social workers who work with children, young and middle aged adults who have conditions that require substantial support, and the sick. This past Thanksgiving we talked for hours about care burden and were able to identify huge crossover and interconnections between our respective populations.
This is ultimately what brought me to Warren and now Bernie (we'll see I guess). We are not paying for the services we receive, and we cannot count on them remaining. Without a Scandinavian style huge tax rate and coordinated welfare state, we cannot maintain this lifestyle. We have built societies on women's domestic and community labor for millennia, and it needs to stop. It will stop, whether we like it or not, as income inequality forces more and more burden on women with less and less resources to respond. It is cracking here in the US. Work with the elderly and you can see the writing on the wall. Work with children and you can see the writing on the wall.
In the meantime, as we lock ourselves inside so women can skip more paid work and provide more care to their families, thank you and I'm sorry. I am a cisgendered man who was raised by women and has worked with mostly women as my colleagues and my supervisors for most of my career. We don't deserve what you have given, we don't deserve what you are giving, and we do deserve to have it come to a screeching halt.
posted by skookumsaurus rex at 7:39 AM on March 14, 2020 [59 favorites]
It is a huge problem economically, emotionally and for the future. It's already impacting millennials, particularly in minority communities. It is disproportionately unfair to African American women. Many are caring for two or three generations at once!
Our field is paying attention to this burden. But the extent of our solutions seems to be 1) better training for unpaid labor; 2) better self-care for unpaid labor, 3) better emotional and social support for unpaid labor, and 4) respite breaks. There's honestly not much else we know how to do at my level of interaction; I can't waive the cost of care to relieve financial burdens (which are tremendous) or raise the cost of care to increase staffing to replace the labor of family care partners. The best I've been able to do is to speak frankly about care partner burden with care partners and encourage them to make big asks so I can try to help.
And once again, this is just trillions of burden placed on women who are caring for older people! My family includes a lot of teachers, nurses, and social workers who work with children, young and middle aged adults who have conditions that require substantial support, and the sick. This past Thanksgiving we talked for hours about care burden and were able to identify huge crossover and interconnections between our respective populations.
This is ultimately what brought me to Warren and now Bernie (we'll see I guess). We are not paying for the services we receive, and we cannot count on them remaining. Without a Scandinavian style huge tax rate and coordinated welfare state, we cannot maintain this lifestyle. We have built societies on women's domestic and community labor for millennia, and it needs to stop. It will stop, whether we like it or not, as income inequality forces more and more burden on women with less and less resources to respond. It is cracking here in the US. Work with the elderly and you can see the writing on the wall. Work with children and you can see the writing on the wall.
In the meantime, as we lock ourselves inside so women can skip more paid work and provide more care to their families, thank you and I'm sorry. I am a cisgendered man who was raised by women and has worked with mostly women as my colleagues and my supervisors for most of my career. We don't deserve what you have given, we don't deserve what you are giving, and we do deserve to have it come to a screeching halt.
posted by skookumsaurus rex at 7:39 AM on March 14, 2020 [59 favorites]
From Marco Cochrane's Bliss Project which asks, "What would the world be like if women were safe?"
posted by Mesaverdian at 5:44 PM on March 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Mesaverdian at 5:44 PM on March 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 6:44 AM on March 14, 2020 [14 favorites]