Caregiving and Families
Recognizing the invaluable contribution of unpaid care work, we strive to create policies that support and uplift caregivers by analyzing the need for accessible and high-quality child care, elder care, paid sick and family leave, flexible work schedules, and cash transfers for mothers and families.
Revisiting Occupational Segregation and the Valuation of Women’s Work
While population ageing increases the demand for care work, new automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), reinforce the importance of human interaction, with recent research documenting significant wage premiums for social skills. Against this background, we investigate two factors behind the gender wage gap: [...]
Threats to Care and Family Support: Impacts of the OBBB on Women and Families
This policy brief focuses on the OBBB’s impacts on women’s caregiving and families, specifically on the issues outlined in IWPR’s Promoting Access to Care and Tax Credits for Families policy briefs. Millions of women face exorbitant costs for care and find it difficult, if [...]
If Parenting Came with a Paycheck, Mothers of Young Children Would Earn $450 Billion a Year
Caregiving takes time, particularly for mothers. On an average day in 2023, mothers of younger children spent 2.5 hours exclusively on child care (primary care) and another 6.5 hours supervising children in combination with other activities. While fathers also spent time caring for kids—averaging [...]
DC Paid Family Leave: Access and Impact on Workers
This report summarizes findings from 12 interviews with beneficiaries of DC Paid Family Leave. These conversations provided insights into how having access to paid leave benefits impacted participants’ financial, mental, and physical well-being, as well as their ability to perform their caregiving responsibilities and [...]
