The state of the care economy and why you should invest in care now.
Our global society depends on certain models and systems to function, especially when it comes to caring for members in that society. When the global pandemic of 2020 hit, it exposed just how fragile the state of the care economy is. We watched many of these structures tumble like a house of cards; directors of nursing homes watched as the virus ravaged the residents in their care, districts shuttered schools and sent teachers off to figure out how to teach remotely, health care workers valiantly served the masses with little space, no sleep, and barely any protection, and parents scrambled to figure out how to juggle work, day care, and school from home.
It is now 2 years later and sadly little has changed. We are still scrambling to figure out how to care for one another in a society that isn’t set up to honor this most noble vocation. And, as in most everything, the marginalized and vulnerable are the ones that suffer the most.
We believe a return to the Village is necessary for our survival. David Brooks eloquently sums this up in his article in the Atlantic “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake”:
“If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. We’ve made life better for adults but worse for children. We’ve moved from big, interconnected, and extended families, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, to smaller, detached nuclear families (a married couple and their children), which give the most privileged people in society room to maximize their talents and expand their options. The shift from bigger and interconnected extended families to smaller and detached nuclear families ultimately led to a familial system that liberates the rich and ravages the working-class and the poor.”
The harsh reality is that there will never be enough buildings, structures, government funding, initiatives or employer benefits to adequately and sustainably cover the care costs for all. The aforementioned are ‘nice to haves’, but an absolute ‘must have’ is a strong community. What we need is a decentralized ecosystem that runs on a peer-to-peer model, an ecosystem that will give due value to those who care for our loved ones, judiciously reward the under-economy of caregivers, and uplift those in marginalized communities.
We need to call on the power of our village and community to solve our local problems. Those solutions are often best realized by the people who are closest to the problems. By each individual making a small change, we can produce a ripple effect that transcends what any government or employer can allocate to the care economy.
The pandemic caused us to slow down and realize that the current system is flawed and not sustainable. We have been looking for quick solutions instead of spending time building a solid and sustainable structure of care and support. We need a shift in our mindset, from the individual to the collective where we make decisions that take generations into account not just the individual and current era.
It is time for us to get back to the ancient wisdom of the village as a system of support for healthy and thriving communities. It does take a village to raise the next generation of community leaders. We are recreating our village with the technological tools we now have available. Abulé is building our village on Web3.
Market Overview
According to a survey led by The Holding Co., we spend $648 billion dollars to care for our loved ones, from their first breaths to their last.
- $136 billion on infant and child care
- $122 billion on household management
- $151 billion on aging in place and home-based care
- $239 billion on non-home long term care
That is bigger than the $510 billion dollar pharmaceutical industry. And yet mothers and care givers are often not rewarded financially, and if they are it is not enough. When schools and day care centers closed to stop the spread of COVID-19, it triggered an exodus of mothers from the workforce and revealed how little support there is for families with young children.
Quality, affordable child care allows parents who want to work to stay in the labor force, encourages the healthy development of young children, and supports families at a stage in their lives during which small investments return large social dividends. We want to tap into this under economy of care givers in our village to provide this quality of care so working families can feel confident in the help of their tribe.
State of the Care Economy
The childcare crisis did not emerge overnight, and COVID-19 has brought to the spotlight how severely broken it is. Now more than ever, moms need to cover missing childcare in order to stay in the workforce, and employers are looking for new ways to support their employees.
Of the 2 million plus women who have left the workforce since the pandemic began, women in underrepresented communities have taken the biggest hit. Statistics show that 70% of black women are often the primary breadwinners for their families. The percentage of single moms also rank the highest in the black community. The number of women leaving the workforce will likely increase, and there will be an even bigger economic impact if we don’t take action now.
Abulé is set on helping to keep as many moms in the workforce as possible, while providing jobs to those who may have lost theirs. We also want to reward those who choose to be care givers.
Care givers, and in particular women, are often left out of career- and wealth-building opportunities when they sacrifice to stay home to raise children or care for family members. Moms are actively looking for ways to cover missing childcare and to maintain a living if they had to leave the workforce. Those women who are marginalized are at an even bigger disadvantage; they often do not have the resources and safety nets that other families do.
The rigor of a stay-at-home mother’s job came into sharp focus during the pandemic, with median time worked reaching 106 hours per week and a fair market salary equivalent of $184,820.
In 2019, prior to the pandemic, families spent an average of $9,200 to $9,600 per child on child care, according to Child Care Aware. This nonprofit calculates that families headed by married couples spend about 10% of household income on child care while single parents spend about 34% of their income. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advises that daycare should amount to no more than 10 percent of a household’s budget. By that calculation, a family would need to earn more than $175,000 annually to afford two children in a daycare center at 2015 average costs. This gap in inequity and wealth is only increasing.
In a perfect world, that $175,000 could go to stay at home parents, paying them the salary they deserve. Until then, we hope to close that gap by tapping into the strength of our village. Because if we don’t do something to support an already tapped-out society, this stress and trauma will have detrimental effects on generations.
Abulé’s Solution
The United Nations’ set forth their Sustainable Development Goals as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere (including gender equality, girls education and women rights). The 17 Goals were adopted by all UN Member States in 2015, as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which set out a 15-year plan to achieve the Goals.
We take up this challenge! Abulé will address the following goals:
- Goal 1 — End poverty in all its forms everywhere
- Goal 3 — Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
- Goal 4 — Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
- Goal 5 — Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
- Goal 8 — Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
- Goal 10 — Reduce inequality within and among countries
- Goal 16 — Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Abulé is all about community. We want our village to be owned by the members, and we want our members to be rewarded for helping to make our village a thriving and caring community. We are creating a sustainable decentralized virtual web3 village built on a token economy with the technology now available to us through Solana. Establishing a more resilient care economy requires each individual to make micro changes that will enable a broader network effect.
At Abulé we are building the first ever decentralized care economy on blockchain.
We want you to help us shape the future of care.
Call 1 844 MY ABULE or email us at hello@abule.io.
“We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives. That is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her God-given potential.” — Hillary Rodham Clinton
