Caregiving is work. Let’s value it with paid family leave.

A version of this column originally appeared in The Alpena News.

We all experience illness, injury or disability during our lives, and it’s critical that our loved ones who care for us are paid for that vital work. That’s why the Michigan League for Public Policy is excited about Gov. Whitmer’s recent call for the legislature to promote health and economic prosperity in our state by expanding paid family leave.

The governor’s proposal resonates with me because of a recent event in my family. My daughter finished kindergarten in June and was excited for the long summer break ahead–day camp, swimming and zipping around the neighborhood on her beloved scooter.

But the good times ended abruptly less than one week in, when she broke her ankle while playing with friends. Fortunately, my employer paid me for the time off I needed to care for her. We didn’t need to worry that an injury that could happen to any child would prevent us from paying our mortgage or medical bills. I was so relieved I could be there for my daughter while she was physically hurt and emotionally shaken.

Still, it was rough–not at all the carefree summer break we’d been anticipating. At first, my daughter couldn’t put any weight on her leg. It was like she was a newborn again and had to be carried everywhere, all day long. But now she weighed 40 pounds and I was five years older.

She was in pain and frustrated over temporarily losing her independence. I was in pain from all of the bending and lifting to get her into and out of the bathtub and the car, and helping her balance on one foot while she attempted routine tasks like getting dressed. The sciatica (also parenting related) that prompted me to seek physical therapy several years ago flared up again. 

And I was dog-tired.

This so-called “work leave” was exponentially more strenuous than my actual job and it didn’t end at 5 p.m.

Care work is an essential sector of our economy that makes all other work possible. Every year, family caregivers in the U.S. provide unpaid care worth more than $600 billion. Caregiving requires skill and considerable physical, mental and emotional labor, but it’s undervalued as legitimate work–largely because the division of caregiving labor remains skewed overwhelmingly toward women.

For live-in unpaid caregivers, this work equals 37 hours per week–essentially a full-time job. Many unpaid caregivers are also working paid jobs and meeting other responsibilities, such as raising children. More than 45% of Michigan’s unpaid caregivers over age 45 have multiple chronic diseases themselves.

The lack of paid leave for care work contributes to the racial and gender wage gap and higher poverty rates for women later in life. For example, Black women have one of the highest labor participation rates of any demographic group, but are less likely to have access to paid leave. They’re also more likely than white women to be their family’s primary or sole wage earner, so taking time off from their paid jobs to do care work can mean precarity for the entire household.

For most of us, being “able-bodied” is a temporary condition. We will all have a summer break or other time in our lives that gets upended by health issues. It’s to everyone’s benefit that our families can help us through our most difficult days safely and with love and dignity. Let’s value care work as the social backbone it is and ensure that all Michigan families have paid leave.