Five Trends in Public Thinking about Care Work

Five Trends in Public Thinking about Care Work F I V E T R E N D S Five Trends in Public Thinking about Care Work How we talk and think about care in the United States has significant bearing on how care is organized in our society—impacting families, communities, and the economy. [...] There are also missing links in how we think and talk about care work for different groups and ages, as we often don’t think about care for older people, care for people with disabilities, and child care in a holistic way. [...] Five Trends in Public 2 Thinking about Care Work F I V E T R E N D S The notion of care as a natural, feminine trait can obscure the role care work plays in our economy, and the need for structural changes to care work. [...] Since both mindsets are available to people, there is an opportunity to widen the lens from an individualist understanding of care work to a more productive, collective and structural understanding, in order to help people understand the importance of contextual factors—such as pay and working conditions—in shaping the quality of care. [...] FINDING #3 Care Work Is Women’s Work What We’re Finding The most common line of thinking about factors shaping care work is rooted in the assumption that care workers are women, because women are “naturally caring.” This aligns with previous research demonstrating that people see men and women as biologically and psychologically suited to different jobs: women in more nurturing roles, and men in m.