The Care Work System as a Fundamental Cause of Economic Inequalities

这个项目研究了承担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通常会给护理人员带来巨大的经济成本。有偿护理工作通常比其他需要相同技能水平或证书的工作报酬低得多，这是一种经济损失，学者称之为有偿护理工作惩罚。无酬照护者也会招致无酬照护工作惩罚，这是指照护者改变或辞去工作，或减少工作时间以照护其家庭和社区中的人时，与提供无酬照护相关的经济成本。该项目全面审查了有偿和无偿护理惩罚如何以及为什么会出现，其后果是什么，以及如何减轻这些后果。该项目包括一个有针对性的传播计划，以与相关群体分享成果并为决策提供信息，利用最先进的统计回归分析和来自三个国家和四十年（1980年代至2010年代）的高质量小组调查数据集。分析解决了三个核心问题：（1）提供有酬和无酬护理工作如何影响个人的经济成果，（2）与护理工作相关的经济处罚如何联系和/或缓解人口特征和社会阶层的经济不平等，以及（3）社会政策如何调节两者。迄今为止的研究已经分别对待有偿和无偿护理工作的处罚，产生了关键的知识差距，限制了对这两种类型的护理工作中驱动经济处罚的相互依赖性，共同发生和协同作用的理解。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了人口特征和社会阶层更广泛的人口层面的经济不平等。该项目提供了第一个全面的经验估计，研究护理工作处罚的重要性，了解经济不平等的原因，并提供了新的见解，了解如何照顾社会政策和基础设施可以减轻或加剧他们。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

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.