Home-based elder care and other forms of in-home work are driving rapid job growth in care occupations in the United States, in part because of the country's aging population. Yet job quality in these occupations remains low, with median wages stagnating near $11 per hour and worker rights violations commonplace. Such work conditions exacerbate a mounting home health care labor shortage and deepen gender and racial inequality, given that women and people of color are disproportionately employed in this sector. The labor shortage, in turn, hinders labor force participation among those, particularly women, who provide care to elderly and the young. As governmental and non-governmental actors seek to improve these conditions, one key challenge they confront is that of implementing labor standards—a difficult task in the context of atomized workplaces, intimate labor processes, and ambiguous employer-employee relations. This study examines regulatory efforts to overcome those challenges and translate labor standards on paper into improved working conditions. The findings will provide evidence of when and how such efforts impact worker outcomes and will inform policymakers as they work to address this unfolding crisis in paid care work.
This study focuses on two regulatory forces in the U.S.—labor unions and government-civil society collaborations—and their impacts on employer compliance, workers’ ability to claim their rights, and resulting work conditions in home-based care work. The research involves an individual-level analysis of original survey data, and a comparative analysis of New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle. Survey data provide indicators of worker outcomes across cities, with participants recruited primarily through targeted digital advertisements. Variations in these outcomes will be explained through analysis of public records, administrative data, and 120 qualitative interviews with workers, employers, and policy actors. In addition to the cross-city comparison, outcomes will be measured at two points in time in Seattle, before and after the initial implementation of new domestic worker regulations. Findings will demonstrate whether and how unions and government-civil society partnerships affect labor standards enforcement in the context of in-home care work. In doing so, the project informs sociological theories of paid care work and workplace regulation, advancing knowledge about the conditions under which policy change translates into substantive change in worker outcomes.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
