Report: Improving Job Quality: Direct Care Workers in the US
Article Highlights
- Policy makers need to stop treating care as low-paid „women‟s work‟ that is incidental to a family‟s income.
tweet this
Around the seminar rooms of Washington, there is much talk about the need for an industrial strategy to support sectors of the economy with the most potential for employment growth. Often the focus of these discussions is infrastructure investment and green jobs. Below the surface, however, is a nagging concern on the part of the Obama administration about the sharp decline in the employment-to-population ratio of men in their prime working years. Although this development preceded the recent recession, it was greatly exacerbated by it.
In part the decline can be explained by the dominance of women in the American industries exhibiting the strongest growth in payroll employment in the years prior to the downturn – education and health services. Even as the recession led to a collapse of employment in the rest of the economy, privately provided education and health services added 844,000 jobs.
About the Author
Eileen Appelbaum
Senior Economist, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Dr. Eileen Appelbaum joined the Center for Economic Policy and Research in 2010 after eight years as Professor in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University. Her research focuses on implications of company practices for organizational effectiveness and employee outcomes. Her current research examines the effects of private equity ownership on managerial ...
Related Experts
Ethan Kaplan
Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Maryland College Park
Sanjay Reddy
Professor of Economics, New School for Social Research
Marcellus Andrews
Professor of Economics, Columbia University
