The Care Work System as a Fundamental Cause of Economic Inequalities

这个项目考察了照顾责任的社会组织如何塑造社会中的经济不平等。在家庭、学校、疗养院或医院为儿童或成人提供护理的基本工作往往会给照顾者带来巨大的经济成本。与其他需要相同技能水平或资历的工作相比，有偿护理工作的薪酬通常要低得多，学者们将这种经济代价称为有偿护理工作惩罚。无偿照顾者还会招致无偿护理工作处罚，这是指在照顾者更换或辞职或减少工作时间以向其家庭和社区的人提供护理时，与提供无偿护理相关的经济成本。这个项目全面研究了有偿和无偿护理处罚是如何以及为什么出现的，它们的后果是什么，以及如何减轻它们。该项目包括一项有针对性的传播计划，以便与相关群体分享成果并为决策提供信息。该项目利用了三个国家和四十年(1980年代至2010年代)最先进的统计回归分析和高质量的小组调查数据集。分析涉及三个核心问题：(1)提供有偿和无偿护理工作如何影响个人的经济结果；(2)与护理工作相关的经济处罚如何联系起来；(或)人口特征和社会阶层如何缓和经济不平等；(3)社会政策如何缓和两者。到目前为止，研究已经分别处理了有偿和无偿护理工作处罚，产生了关键的知识差距，限制了对这两种类型护理工作中推动经济处罚的相互依存、共同发生和协同效应的理解。这种碎片化也使得很难破译个人护理工作处罚在多大程度上影响人口水平、人口特征和更广泛的社会阶层之间的经济不平等。该项目首次提供了全面的实证评估，检验了护理工作处罚在理解经济不平等原因方面的重要性，并提供了新的见解，以了解护理、社会政策和基础设施如何缓解或加剧这些不平等。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project examines how the social organization of caregiving responsibilities shapes economic inequalities in society. The essential work of providing care for children or adults in homes, schools, nursing homes, or hospitals often comes at a significant economic cost to the caregiver. Paid care jobs typically pay significantly less than other jobs requiring the same skill level or credentials, an economic toll scholars call the paid care work penalty. Unpaid caregivers also incur an unpaid care work penalty, which refers to the economic costs associated with providing unpaid care incurred when caregivers change or quit jobs, or reduce work hours to provide care for those in their families and communities. This project comprehensively examines how and why paid and unpaid care penalties emerge, what their consequences are, and how to mitigate them. The project includes a targeted dissemination plan to share results with relevant constituencies and inform decision-making.The project leverages state-of-the-art statistical regression analyses and high-quality panel survey datasets from three countries and four decades (1980s–2010s). Analyses address three central questions: (1) how providing care work, both paid and unpaid, shapes individuals’ economic outcomes, (2) how economic penalties associated with care work are linked and/or moderate economic inequalities by demographic characteristics and social class, and (3) how social policies moderate both. Research to date has treated paid and unpaid care work penalties separately, generating critical knowledge gaps that limit the understanding of the interdependencies, co-occurrence, and synergies driving economic penalties in both types of care work. This fragmentation also makes it difficult to decipher how much individual care work penalties impact population-level economic inequalities across demographic characteristics and social class more broadly. The project provides the first comprehensive empirical estimates that examine the significance of care work penalties in understanding the causes of economic inequalities and provides new insights to understand how care social policy and infrastructure can mitigate or exacerbate them.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.