Making the Care Economy a Caring Economy
By AI-JEN POO, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which works to build power, respect, and fair labor standards for the estimated 2 million nannies, housekeepers, and caregivers for the aging in the United States.
Anna is a Filipino live-in nanny in New York. Her workday begins when the children wake up at 6 in the morning and ends around 10 at night, when she puts them to sleep and finishes cleaning up the kitchen. Anna is paid $620 a month. That means she earns about $1.27 an hour.1
Domestic workers such as Anna—nannies, housecleaners, and caregivers for the elderly—are the backbone of our “care economy.” The work required to care for people in our families across generations is a need and responsibility felt in every American household. As American women increasingly move away from being homemakers and home-based caregivers themselves—instead becoming primary earners or co-breadwinners in most U.S. families—they are increasingly turning to domestic workers to help them at home.
As a result, the domestic work industry grew by 10 percent between 2004 and 2010.2 There are now an estimated 800,000 to 2 million domestic workers in the United States.3 The number is bound to grow, with the 78 million Baby Boomers moving into retirement and into a period in their lives when they might require at-home care themselves.
According to the latest U.S. Census, domestic workers are overwhelmingly female—95 percent.4 Most of their “bosses” are women, too. Domestic workers do the long and hard work of caring for their bosses’ children, homes, and aging relatives, taking pride in their ability to perform the duties that enable families to be strong and households to function smoothly. That work, in turn, helps make it possible for women to earn a living, leaving their homes and families in caring, competent hands.
Many a working mom who hires a nanny, housekeeper, or caregiver does not consider herself to be the boss. In her mind, the boss is someone else—someone far outside the sanctuary of her home—and she is the one who is the employee. She is struggling and juggling all of the responsibilities in her own full life, with little support from her employer and little infrastructure to help her navigate all of her various roles. But the truth is, at home she herself is an employer, with the power and responsibilities that go along with that role.
And it is the working mother’s own employee—the domestic worker who she trusts to take care of her home and the most precious people in her life—who so often is not paid enough to care for her own family and home. Twenty-three percent of domestic workers earn below their state’s minimum wage, and 67 percent of domestic workers who live in their employers’ homes earn below minimum wage.5
Bringing a child into the world carries with it enormous financial obligations as well as joy. In this picture, Carmen Rios coaches Karina Castaneda through labor in San Rafael, California. Carmen, originally from Puerto Rico, is a “companera” who has been helping Spanish-speaking women deliver babies for nearly two decades. {BARBARA RIES}
This is nothing new. For too long, our society has minimized and undervalued the “invisible” work we take for granted, including childbearing, childrearing, elder care, or home management—the “women’s work” that makes other work possible. We have failed to adequately account for the time, work, and energy required to raise families—either by working mothers themselves or by the domestic workers they hire to help them. The American economic model simply does not take into account the actual value of this work. The cost of that failure cuts across all classes, but low-income women, immigrant women, and women of color are the most vulnerable and have the fewest choices.
These are women such as Marlene Champion, originally from Barbados, who has been a domestic worker all of her working life, raising dozens of children while also raising her own, in addition to caring for the elderly. For most of those years, she earned less than a living wage—sometimes less than minimum wage—and never had health care. This year she will turn 65 years old, and she still needs to work full time to support herself.6
In telling the story of our work, I occasionally talk about the harsh light that goes on for many when a domestic worker who is paid less than a living wage sees her employer bring home a $600 pair of shoes. I ask people to imagine what would happen to a place such as Manhattan or Los Angeles if all domestic workers decided not to go to work one day. Again the light bulb goes on: These cities’ economies would tremble, or even crumble, without them.
These images grab people’s attention. But the truth is, the us-versus-them narrative that worked so well in many campaigns for social change really does not work the same way here. That’s because caregiving does not divide us; it unites us and connects us. It’s a shared goal and purpose across the infinitely diverse populations in the United States. We need each other. Here in our homes, with the care of our most vulnerable and valuable at stake, what’s best for each is best for both.
We need to create a “caring economy” where we acknowledge the true, inherent value of care work. When we reach that place, it will be a moment of great healing that grants long-denied dignity and value to the caregivers in every class of society:
In such a world, everyone who provides care—paid and unpaid, men as well as women—will be able to acknowledge the immense power, purpose, and value inherent in that role.
We are taking steps toward that goal. In 2000, we founded Domestic Workers United, or DWU, in New York. DWU led the way to the 2010 passage of the nation’s first Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights,7 which extends basic labor protection—such as minimum wage, overtime pay, and paid time off—to more than 200,000 domestic workers in New York. In 2013, Hawaii became the second state to enact domestic workers’ legislation8 and California passed similar legislation extending overtime pay to some in-home care workers.9 Today, the National Domestic Workers Alliance brings together more than 44 domestic workers’ organizations across the nation,10 and more than five additional states are considering establishing basic rights.11 And in 2013, the Department of Labor announced a regulatory change to include nearly 2 million in-home, direct care workers—who care for the disabled and elderly—under the minimum wage and overtime protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act.12
These changes represent significant breakthroughs for this workforce. Seventy-five years after New Deal labor laws were put into place explicitly excluding domestic workers, we are finally moving toward full inclusion.
It is the beginning of a cultural shift that is necessary for our transformation from just a care economy into a caring economy. I believe the shift is imperative, both morally and economically. It will entail everything from policy changes that support families who hire caregivers, to training and career ladders for care providers themselves, to tech-based innovations that make care accessible to those who need it.
Becoming a caring economy will release tremendous energy and will help us stem the rising tide of inequality in this country. We can have a robust economy that is based on the ethics of full inclusion and care.
Portions of this essay have appeared in previously published works by the author at http://www.domesticworkers.org/es/news/2013/building-a-caring-economy and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aijen-poo/care-economy_b_3118846.html