A Message From Diane Pagen at the Caregiver Credit Campaign

I am someone who is a trained social worker (MSW) who has recently made the decision to work on changing US social policy. I made this decision because I have seen that the U.S. social system is a failure for the women and children it is supposed to protect because of the ideas it is constructed on.

The system believes that the only valuable work is paid work. The harm being done to women both those who work outside the home and those who raise their children full time is yet to be fully calculated. Women in poverty are now told that they must leave their children in day care so that they can go "work." The idea that what they were doing at home is not work hurts all women. Two ironies of the whole welfare to work thing: these women get jobs in the paid labor market doing child care, which is exactly what they were doing at home; and, sending them into the workforce costs the nation MORE money, to sustain the bureaucracy it takes to get them there, even though less money than ever of the welfare budget is being spent to feed and clothe the children.

Taking care of children (and even adults who need care) is not undignified or shameful. It is something many of us will choose to do in our lifetimes as women, and social policies need to support women who want to do it. In particular, women who are poor, who cannot command a decent wage in a paid market job should not be forced to abandon the one job that they do well and want to do--care for their children. Women need productive choice--they need to know that when they decide to engage in unpaid labor for the good of their families, that they will not be ridiculed, called lazy or forced into an impoverished life.

It is because what we do in the home is so unvalued by the economic system, that when we choose to go into the paid marketplace we are paid so badly vis a vis men. The fact is that the wage gap between women and men is now negligible for similar work--it is the wage gap between mothers and men that is appalling (mothers make about half of what men make for the same work). The failure to account for the cash value of unpaid labor is the major factor behind the poverty of women and children and the low wages of women when they get paid jobs. We need to talk about fixing this via policy change in a
multitude of nations including the US.