Suggested Resources on Gender, Care, and Unpaid Labor
Wait…What?! Is a platform for candid discussion for the Women’s Fund community to convene on emerging issues we all face, albeit with varied challenges.
As the holiday season approaches and families gather to celebrate various occasions, we want to take an opportunity to reflect on the additional duties that women carry. Women tend to be the first people called upon to care for sick and elderly loved ones. According to the Family Caregiver Alliance, women remain the main providers of informal long-term care. They must meet the needs of ailing family members (in most cases, parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles) along with juggling work and family obligations while neglecting their own health and well-being.
For our December “Wait…What?!”, Women’s Fund CEO, Donna Haghighat, will be in conversation with Dr. Nancy Folbre, an expert on economics and the family. This discussion will include the impact of caregiving on women’s careers and their livelihoods and the physical, psychological, social, financial, and emotional burdens associated with this form of unpaid labor.
ICYMI, watch the recording here:
Our Community Investments Manager, Nicole M. Young-Martin, has curated a list of additional resources and readings on Gender, Care, and Unpaid Labor:
Books
Please consider ordering these books through The Ethnic Study CoWork Café & Bookstore or Olive Tree Books-n-Voices, two local, independent bookstores owned by women of color in Springfield.
- The Gender Pay Gap: Understanding the Numbers by Fatma Abdel-Raouf, Patricia M. Buhler
- Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Career and Caregiving by Caitlyn Collins
- The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values by Nancy Folbre
- Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family by Nancy Folbre
- Women and the Economy: Family, Work and Pay (4th Edition) by Saul D. Hoffman and Susan Averett
- Women, Work, and Power: The Political Economy of Gender Inequality by Torben Iversen and Frances Rosenbluth
- Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength by Chenequa Walker-Barns
Articles
- The Female Face of Family Caregiving | National Partnership for Women and Families
- Building a Society that Values Care by Kathryn Cai | Public Books
- It’s Still a Shecession | National Organizations for Women Foundation
- Women and Caregiving: Facts and Figures reviewed by Phyllis Mutschler, Ph.D. | National Center on Caregiving at Family Caregiver Alliance
- Why Caregiving Needs to be De-Feminized by Anil Patil | White Swan Foundation
- The Coronavirus Recession is a She-Cession by Audrey Andrews | Ms. Magazine
- The Costly, Painful, Lonely Burden of Care by Mara Altman | In Her Words | The New York Times
Advocacy Organizations and Ways to Get Involved
- 4 Ways You Can Join the Fight to Support Equal Pay by Natasha Piñon | Mashable
- Equal Rights Advocates: Equal Pay Today, an organization challenging the legal, policy, and cultural barriers that have allowed the gender wage gap to persist.
- Gender Action Portal, a collection of research evaluating the impact of specific policies, strategies, and organizational practices to advance gender equity.
- Women Work: UNICEF’s approach to women’s paid and unpaid work.