Recent findings from FrameWorks Institute Culture Change Project demonstrated that care work and caregiving is present in the minds of many Americans, but the skills and infrastructure involved in care work are still overlooked. FrameWorks dove into these mindsets with panelists on Instagram live, including Ai-jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Ishita Srivastava of Caring Across Generations, and Robert Espinoza of PHI.

The conversation centered around four key areas:

Conceptions of Care: One theme that stood out both in our research and in this conversation was the tendency to think of caring as a character trait, rather than a legitimate form of labor that relies on supportive working conditions.

The Origin of Care Worker Stereotypes: The conversation also shed light on a few ways in which the racist and sexist history of care work and expectations about who ought to assume the brunt of care labor may impact the way that care continues to be understood today.

The Universality of Human Dependence: Humans are interdependent by nature of our inclusion within complex webs of relationships. Such a reality speaks to how care work is a public good, and that it’s in our collective interest to develop and improve working conditions that allow for quality care.

Addressing ‘System-is-Rigged’ Thinking:
One final takeaway from the conversation was that improving care work means implementing systemic changes. Ai-jen noted that to address the systemic problems within care sectors, we need to acknowledge that systems are designed by people, and we have the ability to redesign them.