Episode 249: The $3.6 Million Care Gap and How It’s Affecting You

By Sarah Walton | October 8, 2024

Click here to watch the video version of this podcast episode at 3pm

I want to address the $3.6 million care gap in the United States. Yeah, you heard that right. The care gap deals with who in the family is providing the most care for other members of the family, community and extended family – and you guessed it, the care gap tends to fall on women.

Obviously, things are changing -- and we hope they continue to change. One of the ways we can cause them to change is to actually talk about the numbers behind the care gap, how we calculate those numbers and what we do about it. This includes how we view different kinds of work, how we view care, and what we do about it as a society.

For those of us who own businesses and really want to take care of our families, this is a big one. If you've ever wondered why it feels hard sometimes, we're going to get to that, and you're going to have your questions answered.

What is the care cap?

There is a human in a family who tends to pull back their career and care for other members of the family – this can be aging parents, Aunt Myrtle, children or people in the community. There is a level of care given that causes that human to pull back on their career and making money.

The person who does that in a family, on average, in the United States, is worth $180,000 a year. That’s shopping. That’s food planning and cooking. That’s cleaning. That’s driving.

How is the care gap calculated?

If someone is taking 20 years to attending to children and or aging family members, that’s $3.6 million over those 20 years for one family ($180,000 x 20 years is $3.6 million).

To fill this care gap, if there isn't a member of the family doing it, you're paying someone else to do it. As women this affects our ability to have more financial power. whoever is filling the care gap.

I think as we talk about this, one of the things that we can do is ask ourselves why we don't value the care gap work as much as we value revenue generating work? For some reason, we pretend like it doesn't matter as much.

There are varying theories about that, from this is really hard work. I don't want to do it, which means it doesn't matter. (That's a real thing. That's a conversation people are having.) The other theory is that it's invisible.

It's the invisible, unpaid work that makes the world work. It is making lunches. It's making sure programs are met. It's making sure deadlines are met. It's making sure people are at doctor's appointments.

Carrying the mental load

My son went to college this year, and before he left there were a couple weekends where he watched me around the house. I love to clean. I love to patch drywall. I love to take care of my home. It's one of my big passions. I really enjoy it.

And he was watching me do this, and he looked around and he asked, “Wait a minute, how often do you do this?” I said once every two weeks.

There's a mental load to having life work properly. I asked him, do you know if the dog's been fed? No.

Do you know if the cat's been fed? No.

Are they up on their vaccinations? I don't know.

Do you have a doctor's appointment coming up? I think so.

Do you know when it is? No.

I went through all the things.

Do we need to go grocery shopping?

What are we having for dinner tomorrow?

Do we have what we need for dinner tomorrow?

Do we have friends coming over? Is your bedroom clean? Is the laundry done?

And I didn't do that to scare him. But I want you to recognize if this happens to be you in your home, I want you to recognize the mental load that exists nonstop for you. Just feel that. Because somebody has to do it.

When we don't do the lifting of the mental load and the care that is necessary for human beings to thrive today, the invisible, unpaid work that must get done in order for households to run well, in order for our children to thrive, in order for our relationships to be healthy, in order for our bodies to be healthy and strong, somebody has to be keeping track of those things. And we don’t talk about that.

So if you are finding yourself feeling like you're always behind the eight ball, or you're like, what is wrong with me? Why can't I do all the things I know I need to do?

How many things are you actually doing? We don’t talk about or acknowledge that. We minimize it. We don’t pay attention to it, and then we assume there’s something wrong with us when we can’t handle all of it.

Keep track

I want you to keep track of what you're doing. Keep track of the time that it costs you. We have to be honest about the time that it costs us to run our lives, but also how much time there is and the reason we do what we do.

I want to be honest about what this care gap and this mental load gap is causing for so many human beings right now. Because once we start to talk about something, we start to create solutions for it, which is so magical. We start to figure out what we could do differently. How can society support in different ways? How can we support each other in different ways?