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THE CARE SECTOR OF THE ECONOMY
WHAT ROLE SHOULD GOVERNMENT PLAY?
Thank you for your time. I am here to speak of the very personal issue of who takes care of those you love when they cant
take care of themselves. I am asking you to consider those who take care of the young, sick, elderly, handicapped and dying.
That may be you from time to time, or your spouse or someone else close to you, someone you know and trust or someone you
hire. How does government benefit from this role, who should do it and how should government treat it?
The issue crosses many departments
Health- because it is about the health of those getting care. And health because it is about the anxiety, stress, depression
and workload of those giving care.
It is a finance issue, not just about household budgets which often are in shock at the salary loss of the caregiver,
but also federal finance. The care of others at home historically has saved the state billions in institutional care. If
we remove the home –based option, how much will it cost the state?
It is about the status of women because caregiving is historically a female role. When we say women work do we include
their caregiving? Right now we just count their paid work away from home. Is that fair?
This is also a concern of justice. Do we value care roles at all? If we do, do we favor some over others? Right now we
favor third party care and ignore family-based care. Is that consistent with human rights?
This is also a labor issue. We used to count only mens paid work as work but now with women entering paid labor, we say
they now work. But some say women have always worked, just for free. Should we now redefine work itself ? Do you need a paycheque
to prove you do something useful for society?
This is an issue of intergovernmental affairs. It is about health, education and social policy which are provincial, but
also about taxation, employment and labor which are federal.
It is an issue of international affairs. Canada signed charters about caregiving and we have to remember our promises.
The issue is apolitical and outside any religious affilation. It is simply about caregiving wherever, whenever it occurs.
Here is a brief summary of what I think has happened.
We have gone from ignoring caregiving, to seeing it as an obstacle to doing paid work. Then we saw it as a burden to
be shared between genders. Then as important for the receiver of care, then something commercial to encourage to generate
taxes. Then we valued it for itself but only done by those with money.
I feel that we still do not really value caregiving itself, for itself.
In early times men and women divided roles. He hunted and fished,;she gave birth and nursed the young and sick. They
needed each other and were interdependent. But when money was used for trade, only mens work was deemed part of the economy.
The exclusion of caregiving started there.
Men gave themselves the right to vote, own land and make laws. They viewed women as too busy, uniformed and uneducated
to have those rights.
In the twentieth century women questioned their exclusion from such rights.
The first push of the womens movement then was for women to get rights men had -to vote, own property, sit in the Senate.
Then women wanted admission to higher education, corporate offices, careers and pay equity. They wanted what men had
- money, financial independence , power. That was their second view of equality.
And women won those rights. They were on a par with men for education, hiring, promotions and pay unless and until a
crisis happened. Suddenly the gender gap resurfaced. The crisis was caregiving.
If a baby was born or anyone got sick or was dying, it was the woman who was assumed to be willing and able to leave paid
work to do caregiving for free.
For that she not only lost salary and job promotion but pension. She was penalized for life because of her care obligations.
This was obviously a lose-lose scenario. Women penalized for having children stopped having them. The birth rate seriously
slid, despite research that showed that, women really did want to have more kids.
Women were in a catch-22. They could stay at the paid job and feel guilty or they could be home and become poor.
What could be done?
The womens movement of the 70s proposed several solutions.
The push was still to see liberation as a move away from caregiving. There were carrots offered and sticks.
The state should become the caregiver. It was urged to provide more care of the young, with universal daycare. It was
encouraged to nudge women out of the home by tax perks for leaving, to make their financial independence only attainable if
they earned their own money.
And the state was urged to provide disincentives to being a caregiver at home. Over time it removed all tax breaks for
being at home kept the spousal deduction low, removed the family allowance, wiped the child dependent deduction. It taxed
the single income household higher than the dual income household on any given income.
In this way some womens groups felt that women would be urged to become earners, for their own good even if they had caregiving
to do back at home.
But this strategy did not work completely.
Anxiety, stress and depression increased both for women who earned and for those back at home. One group had more money
and status but still felt conflicted and the other felt dehumanized and scorned, while working hard for free.
Women who earned said they now were doing both paid work and the care role each day. The new focus was then to get men
to share the tasks at home. The census tallied who did caregiving and lobbyists tried to get men to take it on also. In this
way caregiving was now seen as a burden, to be shared.
Women who earned were not happy with the times their care plan fell through- when the daycare would not take the child
because he was sick, when the family moved or there was a career or health crisis at home and another care plan had to be
put into place fast and the money for taking care of the child did not go where the child was. It only went to daycare.
Women who earned were also unhappy with the care some of their kids were getting . The elderly in institutions were launching
lawsuits about care there. Third party care was not as high quality as some would have liked.
The new focus then became not just on care as an obstacle or a burden but on care as important to the receiver of the
care.
To reassure women that those they loved were OK in placement with strangers, the new lobby then was ensure the strangers
were trained and the care was regulated. This eased the worries of many not all. It turned out that it was impossible to
please all parents because parents disagreed on use of soothers, toilet training schedules, diets for kids, discipline strategies
and even how to talk to a child. Seniors wanted to be back home with their familiar objects, food and traditions.
Other problems surfaced too. Polls showed people wanted choices. Though some daycares had long wait lists, it turned out
the same name was on several lists and often the child on the list was not even born. The state funded many daycare spaces
that lay vacant. Parents, despite cheap daycare were often voting with their feet to use grandma care, sitter care and other
flexible arrangements With new technologies of work at home, telecommuting and home-based office as well as the new options
to take the child to work or tag-team, parents were using a wide range of care . And because they were educated citizens,
they were admitting when the state funded only one style, it seemed unfair.
The new focus shifted again then, not to care as an obstacle or burden to share, not to care for wellbeing of the care
receiver. The new push was to make care by a 3rd party sound better than any other type of care.
Daycare was renamed childcare and then early education. The new push was to say not just that care of a child mattered,
which much research showed, but that care in a government facility was better for the child and the only place where the
child could learn.
Research however differed on that score. It did show that little children like to play with each other and when taught
the alphabet and how to share and recognize colors, do well on tests after using daycare. They did however also do well on
tests after not using daycare. Studies showed benefits of care by 3rd parties when the home was abusive or neglectful, but
no clear benefits over a loving home. Some troubling studies noticed that too early socialization of a child interfered
with language development and high noise levels interfered with learning. Daycare activists admitted the problems but said
money would fix them – more staff, higher salaries.
And so daycares now moved to raise the bar, to make care costly so it was of high quality and to make the state pay ever
increasing salaries of care workers. The new view of caregiving was that it was useful to society, even crucial, but that
it only happened when it was paid. A whole industry ballooned to offer its care services for money. Now caregiving was defined
as a profession – but only if it was paid.
But still parents wanted choices, and many stood by their right to take care of their own child or seek kin-care as well
as the option for daycare.
It was not necessary to do in-fighting, to say one location of care, for profit or not for profit, 3rd party or kin-based
was better. People would never agree on those points. The solution of diversity of opinion in a democracy has always been
tolerance.
There was no point alienating any parent or criticizing a very personal choice they had made.
The public was simply now willing to say that care itself mattered, and that time spent with a child or dying relative
was important to the caregiver and receiver, wherever they were.
Corporations too allowed new options- work from home, telecommuting, part-time work with full-time benefits, split shifts,
flexible shifts. Clever and educated women were inventing whole new careers self-employed or with home-based business. The
public had spoken. The corporate world had spoken. The only one not to move was the state.
Meanwhile the costs of 3rd party care were ballooning . Stress levels had not dropped despite offering nearly free institutional
care. The human factor had been ignored.
The state moved again. This time it valued caregiving itself and permitted mothers or fathers to be with newborns. It
legislated to let someone be with a person who was at home, dying.
For the first time the state was saying that caregiving was useful to society itself and would not penalize it.. And
yet the way it did this was not quite full recognition.
The states maternity, parental and compassionate care benefits depended on how much you earned. The historically female
role was still only valued through the old male paradigm of money.
We had not quite come the full way.
We had said caregiving did not exist, and then that it was an obstacle, then that it was a burden to share, and then that
it mattered for the one getting the care. The state said it was vital but only if paid, and then it allowed home-based care
but only for those who had money.
I am here to suggest a solution. It is not to go backwards to have women in the home. It is not a movement to shoot down
any gains made to date.
It is to suggest we take the final step to equality. Recognize caregiving for itself. Do not value it because it is paid
or because of the gender or career or marital status of the caregiver. Value the work.
It is what we do for schooling. It is what we do for any other profession.
When someone needs care the state should fund care wherever it happens period.
This is the win-win solution.
It is the fairest to children and the elderly since it respects their choices about who gives them care.
It is the least expensive for the finance department since funding empty institutional spaces is a waste of money and
institutional care alone is more costly than home-based.
It is the wisest to reduce health care costs and the only fair solution for the justice department since it respects equal
benefit under the law.
It is however though elegant and simple, a ground-breaking final shift.
For the first time the state would be valuing a historically female role it used to ignore, and valuing what used to be
outside the economy as now part of the economy.
There would have to be a few changes made to ensure pension and childcare benefits and tax policy gave dignity to this
caregiver role.
There would have to be some changes made to the consultation process since right now the state seeks advice of those who
earn- it would now have to seek advice also of those whose work is unpaid.
But this is the only fair thing to do. And it is time to do it.
Value caregiving itself.
Beverley Smith
You may also wish to subscribe to a free online newsletter called Recent Research on Caregiving at bevgsmith@alumni.ucalgary.ca
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