By now we we’ve all heard many times of the ways Covid-19 has forced us to confront longstanding inequalities. Systemic racism, police brutality, and wage gaps have all become conspicuous and too hard to ignore. America’s failure to adequately compensate professionals and family members who support children, older people, and those with disabilities is yet another area where we’ve found new acuity on long-standing inequities. Whether we change policy to address these and other issues will be seen in time, but we’re almost guaranteed to come up short if we keep talking about this work – with heavy use of the term “care giving” – in the same old way.
The good news is that government and the nonprofit world both recognize the need to upend pay disparities for those working in child care, education, and health care. Through the American Families Plan, the Biden-Harris Administration has acknowledged that “more investment is needed to support early-childhood care providers and educators, more than nine in 10 of whom are women and more than four in 10 of whom are women of color. They are among the most underpaid workers in the country, and nearly half receive public income support programs.”
To that end, the plan provides for paid family leave, child tax credits, $200 billion for universal preschool, $225 billion to raise wages for workers in child care, $9 billion to train and diversify teachers, and a promise that “educators will receive job-embedded coaching, professional development, and wages that reflect the importance of their work.”
Indeed, educators in Head Start and participating pre-kindergarten programs would receive at least $15 an hour, a boost from the current average that hovers barely above $12 an hour. In the White House’s American Jobs Plan, too, home care workers were guaranteed a “long overdue raise, stronger benefits, and an opportunity to organize or join a union and collectively bargain.”
The White House isn’t the only one tackling the issue: A team of the country’s leading philanthropists has come together to form the $50 million CARE (Care for All With Respect and Equity) Fund, the purpose of which is, among other things, to help change policy for those who “provide and consume care.”
Infuse Dignity Into the Work
This is a long overdue change, particularly on the heels of a pandemic, when parents were stretched thin between their own paid work and child care and teachers, long-term facility employees, and day care workers were placed at risk of infection while working, without industrywide increases in pay or benefits.
With all these public calls for new approaches, we’re starting to pay attention to the problem and see the urgency of addressing it. But if we’re to pass legislation (and implement long-standing policy), then we’ll have to modify how we talk about the work at issue to infuse it with dignity and, perhaps more important, ensure it gets viewed and adequately compensated as professional work. Philanthropy can support this overarching work to frame key issues and connect those advocating for change in to amplify, and avoid splintering, their efforts.
“Caregiving,” whether for those at the start or end of their lives, is regularly seen as “pink collar” or “women’s work;” as such, to some, it isn’t considered work at all but rather a “labor of love,” something for which it could be considered gauche, or even immoral, to seek compensation.
In our culture, we see care giving as natural — not skilled work, not a profession. Some, like mothers, have a knack for it, so the thinking goes. And in the way a mother should feel about tending her own child, the act of care giving itself should be deemed reward enough (on top of some basic pay). People in this industry, so goes the zeitgeist, do it “out of the goodness of their hearts.” Just think about the differences in how we talk about nurses and doctors: While there might be valid reasons for differentiation in pay, most would say “he became a doctor because it’s a good job,” and “she became a nurse because she likes taking care of others.” Care giving is conducted by good people, and good people don’t do things for money.
That basic assumption must be challenged.
To be sure, we don’t need to negate the fact that this work — whether done by algebra teachers or home health aides — can and likely should be performed in a way that inspires (students), embodies respect (for disabled persons), or shows compassion (really, to anyone). Indeed, these are laudable qualities. But when we repeatedly describe this work as “caring” or “a labor of love” without additionally acknowledging its professionalism or the concrete results it produces (kids learn math, those at their life’s end maintain well-being), then we devalue it — and so does the economy. That’s bad for everyone.
Of course, new labels alone won’t fix the problem of devalued labor. Some professions — teachers, for example — have been regarded in a certain way for so long that both our language and the culturally created viewpoints that language feeds, and is fed by, will have to shift if we’re to enhance their status.
Research my FrameWorks colleagues and I conducted on views of teachers confirms that most Americans regard these professionals as “innately caring nurturers answering a higher calling,” who have “passion” and an “intrinsic” gift for the work, which is seen as a “labor of love.”
As we noted in a memo on the matter, by attributing teachers’ success to inherent traits (passion, dedication), we miss the “external factors that account for teacher development and success,” thereby skipping over policy changes — pay increases, training, supplies — that would not only compensate professionals fairly but also ensure enhanced results for schools going forward. When we better value the profession as a profession, we can stop searching for teachers who “go the extra mile” or “have more passion” and instead focus on creating infrastructure that supports the educational institution and, by design, fosters its employees’ growth.
The shift, then, may not end with language, but it can at least start there. As history confirms, language matters; how we refer to people matters. We need to shift from “care” language when talking about those who educate, support, and keep safe people of all ages.
Perhaps the shift I now propose is akin to one we’ve already been pushing on “senior citizen.” Created in the 1930s, that phrase carried respect at the time, but our research tells us that today it more often than not connotes “frail” and “less technologically capable,” whereas “older person” both captures the intended age bracket (64 and over) and conveys more competence.
Why Philanthropy Can Help
Philanthropy, with its ability to invest in research that benefits everyone and take a long-term perspective on change, has an essential role to play in shifting Americans’ mind-sets and policy on key issues. Take, for instance, the marriage-equality movement: research confirmed that the best way to shift straight people’s attitudes was to shift from talk of “rights and benefits” to something more universal and relatable: love and commitment.
What’s a better way to talk about “care work”? The short answer is, I don’t know, but I can think of how labels in this realm affect attitudes. Consider, for example, the distinction between “babysitter” and “nanny,” the former connoting a high-school occasional job and the latter more of a profession. The terms “hospice worker” and “home health aide,” too, convey a professionalism that, say, “caregiver” does not. These are just starting points, which is why we need to invest in research that identifies how people view these professions under their current labels and produces new framing to shift views — and treatment — of this work.
We need to dig deeper into why we associate current language, and the underlying work itself, with something avocational rather than a profession demanding fair pay, respect, and rights. Language matters; we’ve always known that. As Mark Twain famously quipped, “The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” So let’s figure out the right words.
Nat Kendall-Taylor is CEO of Frameworks, a social-science think tank that uses research to influence the public and policy.
