Zannat Reza: When you think about caregiving, what words come to mind?
Maybe it's love, duty, or family.
What about the economy?
After all, caring for others is work, even though sometimes it's paid and sometimes it's unpaid.
But that work is critical to keeping our society and our economy running.
I'm Zannat Reza.
Welcome to The Future Age podcast, where we explore bold ideas and creative solutions in reimagining life as we get older.
My guest today is part of a group that wants you to take a fresh look at how we think about care work, and in particular, its impact on the economy.
Dr.
Diana Rodríguez Franco is a Special Advisor on Gender and Diversity for the President of the Inter-American Development Bank.
She's also a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on the Future of the Care Economy.
Earlier this year, the Council released a paper about the state of the care economy that urges world leaders to make caregiving an economic priority, arguing that it'll create a more equitable and prosperous society.
And they're not alone.
Experts around the world, including in Canada, are making similar calls to action.
I spoke to Diana about how our society undervalues care work, how that disproportionately affects women, and how governments around the world are finding new approaches to support caregivers.
I started our conversation by asking her to define the care economy and to make the case for why it deserves more attention.
Diana Rodríguez Franco: So I love this question because I think care is a word that encompasses so much and when we're talking about the care economy, let me take you back to a very basic definition.
Let's start by what is care?
Basically, care is all those services and actions and labor that sustains life and society.
So care refers to caring for the elderly, for children, for people with disability, cooking, cleaning, looking for medicine.
Those actions that we see everywhere, but which are highly invisible, and we take as natural, as normal, we've normalized.
And what the care economy is, it encompasses the paid and unpaid activity and the labor relationships that sustain that human activity.
And so at that point is where care becomes absolutely fundamental to any economic activity.
Zannat Reza: It's interesting.
As I read the report, a couple of things jumped out.
A few statements that were made that care underpins the entire global economy.
And I thought, that's a huge claim.
So I'd like to do a deeper dive into that.
And then there was also the part around a well designed care economy will achieve other things, including higher levels of productivity growth and business profitability.
And I thought, what is the evidence to back up these claims?
Diana Rodríguez Franco: I always like to start with examples with which people can resonate and feel closer to their own lives and experience.
Say we're all in a meeting and we're in a meeting at any enterprise or any government office.
And the reason most people can be in that meeting is because somebody else is caring for their father, caring for their aging mother, caring for their grandmother with disabilities, caring for their children.
Or because somebody has cooked and cleaned and helped them sustain their family and the society.
That's why all those care services, usually disproportionately done by women, are essential to all other activity.
There could be no CEOs of companies or presidents or academics if someone else had not cared for us, did not care and provide both those care services for people and household services because then we wouldn't be there.
We wouldn't be able to do our other jobs.
I insist in that idea because that's where we can see how care economy and recognizing caregivers is so important to understand its connection to poverty, prosperity, and economic growth.
Zannat Reza: You know, I think that's a really good way of making that real for people, to say you can only show up to work if there are people doing work to support you.
Diana Rodríguez Franco: Exactly.
Usually that someone else is a woman and I do want to stress this point because it's essential to understand that, in particular, unpaid care work falls disproportionately on women's shoulders.
There's one message that we want everybody to understand is to recognize that that care economy is the key to prosperity and growth and to economic production and to all other jobs.
I also think that it's important to tie some figures to this, right?
So there's been efforts to estimate the magnitude and the value of the care economy.
And always we're talking about the paid and the unpaid component.
And what do I mean by that?
There's some people, mostly women again, who receive a salary.
For carrying out paid work, but also there's a lot of unpaid care work.
And let me just give you one figure, which is shocking.
And it's nearly two billion people are working full time in the world with no pay, doing unpaid care work.
And that represents nine percent of global GDP, or eleven trillion dollars.
Zannat Reza: Let's pause and let that sink in for a second.
Those are massive numbers.
And what about in Canada?
Well, one in four Canadians is a caregiver and on average provides about thirty hours of unpaid care a week.
The Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence puts the value of that unpaid care work at ninety-seven billion dollars.
They also estimate that half a million Canadians have reduced their work hours or quit their jobs to provide care, and this means one point three billion dollars in lost productivity every year.
Plus, it's looking like the problem will only grow as we face a perfect storm of declining birth rates, an aging population, and labor shortages.
Now, even though all kinds of people act as caregivers, the work disproportionately falls on women.
Around the world, women dedicate three times as many hours to unpaid care work as men do.
And add to that, the fact that many of these caregivers are not only doing unpaid care work, they may also have a full time paid job.
And that means...
Diana Rodríguez Franco: They're trapped in time poverty.
And that's another concept I would love the audience to retain.
When women are trapped in time poverty, meaning, because you're doing unpaid care work all the time, there's no time to go to school, no time to go to a health checkup, no time to participate in politics, no free time to exercise, then women fall behind.
So that's another key link.
So it's not only the fact that people are not being paid and recognized for the work they're doing, it's also what happens if you're all day trapped in unpaid care work, which is you're trapped in time poverty.
All your basic rights are being hindered.
Zannat Reza: So this issue of time poverty is not just about personal fairness, it also deepens inequalities in society.
Diana Rodríguez Franco: We try to do educational programs, have more women involved in STEM careers.
We want more women, especially in leadership jobs or participating in politics.
Well, all those programs will eventually fail if women are trapped in time poverty, because not surprisingly, they can't attend or they have to drop out.
I want to really take you to Latin America, where you see how many women, we all have someone close to us who has dropped out of high school, who has never attended school, even in the twenty-first century because they've been assigned the role of caring for their grandfather, caring for their children, so forth.
So there's multiple links of why understanding unpaid care work and paid care work is so essential if we want to focus on growth and prosperity.
Zannat Reza: So what's the solution?
What does a well designed care economy look like?
Diana Rodríguez Franco: A well designed care system first recognizes this cannot be resolved in silos.
So it cannot be the private sector trying to offer some services.
And then the government sector at the subnational, national level offering others, and then NGOs or the communities offering other services.
The first key aspect is focusing that there has to be a holistic approach to how we provide care service.
Second, this is not only a market solution.
That's not only what we need.
It's not, oh, well, now what we have to offer is tons and tons of child care for everyone, which is paid, or care services for older adults, or for people with disabilities.
We also have to bear in mind that it cannot be only paid service is because then you'll exclude a lot of the population that cannot pay for those services.
Perhaps the clearest link if I take you to what we did in the city of Bogotá under the administration of the former mayor, Mayor Claudia López.
Zannat Reza: Diana worked in that administration as the Secretary of Women's Affairs.
In that role, she helped implement a cool new social program to help relieve pressure on caregivers.
Diana Rodríguez Franco: Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia in South America, a city of eight million people, where one third of the women devote their time all day to unpaid care work.
So they're trapped in time poverty, so many of them have not finished high school, have not gone to a health checkup in years.
And so, what did we do?
We adopted a holistic approach in which we focus both on the services that are required for those requiring care, so like the children, like the elderly, or the people with disabilities, and at the same time for caregivers.
Because we have to close the gap of caregivers and avoid that the gap widens and expands by having great care services for those that receive care.
And the way to do it was through care blocks.
Areas of the city, that bring together in the same vicinity services for the two populations, for caregivers and for care receivers.
For caregivers, we offer them those services that they had sacrificed because of the unpaid care burden.
So what was that?
The possibility of finishing high school, regardless of age or socioeconomic background.
The possibility of learning how to ride a bike.
The possibility of learning how to use a cell phone or a computer.
So we were focused on offering services that would close the gap that had been derived from the unpaid care burden.
In order for these women to be, or men and non binary persons, to be able to access these services, we had to guarantee that in the same vicinity we would offer care services for those requiring care.
Children were provided quality care.
Or the older adults were taken care of, so women would actually have the time to participate in those activities.
That's one example of a solution that came from a city.
Zannat Reza: Of course, any new social program has costs involved, not just for staffing, but also for infrastructure.
You need buildings to house these care blocks and construction is a big expense, but they were able to get around that with some creative thinking.
Diana Rodríguez Franco: The first thing we did was what if we changed the mindset and we think more on the services that are needed, more than the, starting from the point that we need to build a new building in order to provide service.
And we mapped what infrastructure was available.
And not surprisingly, even in a city of eight million people, we found that a lot of the infrastructure was underutilized.
And so, one of the principles of the care blocks was flexibility.
Adapting existing infrastructure.
And also allowing for infrastructure not to be used only by one area of government.
So usually, this building belongs to the health sector, and the other one belongs to the environmental sector, and the other one to the women's affairs sector.
What if in the same building, all government agency could operate in the same space?
And that is the first thing that had an impact on transportation and had an impact on offering the services.
Because when all the services are in the same building, or in a few buildings that are proximate to each other, then you don't depend on so much public transportation.
Zannat Reza: Do you think care blocks came about because of a female mayor?
What spurred this concept?
Diana Rodríguez Franco: Need for care services has always been an issue explored mostly by women's rights and gender equality.
And so when you have a first female mayor, then having a first woman elected mayor in Bogotá, talked and she committed and she signed a pact with the women's movement that she would create a municipal care system.
So it's not only because you have a woman in power.
But it's because you have a woman that understands and is committed to a woman's and to an equality agenda.
And it's those two factors that came together in the case of Bogotá.
So it's having women in positions in power, like being the mayor, and having a clear rights agenda and women's rights agenda and comprehension of the issue.
Zannat Reza: Bogotá is just one example of a government rethinking care, but there are others.
For example, Barcelona has implemented a suite of reforms from meal delivery services, activities for older adults or people with disabilities, and a special card for caregivers giving them access to resources like a mental health support phone line, specialized advice, and leisure activities.
Some countries use what's called a cash for care model, offering older adults a choice about how and where they get care.
This model exists in over half of OECD countries.
In Germany, for example, you can choose to get traditional long term care support or you can get cash to spend on services including the option to pay informal caregivers.
This greater level of independence has been proven to have positive effects on the recipient.
In Canada, we have a patchwork of support for caregivers and care recipients through various tax credits, and some provinces like PEI and Nova Scotia offer a cash benefit for caregivers.
Diana stresses that different levels of government have distinct but important roles to play in the policy ecosystem.
Diana Rodríguez Franco: You might start from a national level regulation or you might start from a municipal solution, but it's important to note that at the end you will always need the local governments because those are the providers of the services.
At the national level, it's also important because it creates the framework.
Zannat Reza: Governments at all levels need to prioritize care through policy, funding, and programming.
But everyone has a role to play, including communities and volunteer led programs.
For example, some places in the US and Canada have implemented the Share The Care model, where a group of friends, family members, coworkers, and acquaintances come together to share caregiving responsibilities for someone in need.
There's also an innovative digital platform developed by Tuktu Care in BC that uses AI to match volunteers and paid caregivers to those who need care, kind of like an Uber style care on demand model.
As for organizations across all sectors, they need to find innovative ways to support employees who are caregivers.
This is particularly important for the public sector, which is the largest employer in Canada, and the healthcare sector, where there are double duty caregivers.
Those who provide care as part of their paid work can then go home to do a second shift.
Caregiver friendly policies include flexible work arrangements, support groups and counseling, paid and unpaid leave, expanding the definition of family in workplace leave and insurance policies, and making sure managers are provided the proper training on how to support employees who are caregivers.
What's crucial in all of this is senior leadership being openly supportive of these strategies.
Diana has some thoughts on the role the private sector can play.
Diana Rodríguez Franco: I think corporate social responsibility has brought about a lot of very important changes and changes in the mindset and of the social impact of enterprises and corporations.
But if we really want to acknowledge the role of care as being essential for growth and prosperity, we need to transition from a corporate social responsibility to the shared responsibility of care.
In which companies realize that if they offer care services within their own infrastructure and vicinities and factories or building, they're going to improve their productivity.
And help redistribute the care burden more equitably.
Zannat Reza: Our last question, Diana, is something that we ask every guest, which is if you could wave a magic wand and make one radical but realistic change to improve our society's well being, what would it be?
Diana Rodríguez Franco: I would move the magic wand so society at large understands that women were not born with a DNA knowing how to care.
We can all learn to care, and we need to redistribute care in order to attain more just societies or else women will always be left behind.
So it starts from there.
It starts from recognizing that it's just not a responsibility that should fall on women.
And so if the magic wand across the world would help us understand that we need to recognize that care should be shared and that they cannot fall only on women's shoulders.
Zannat Reza: Wonderful.
Thank you so much, Diana.
Muchas gracias.
Diana Rodríguez Franco: Muchas gracias.
Zannat Reza: Thanks for joining us for this episode.
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