Five years ago, my mother was rushed to the hospital for an aneurysm. For the next two weeks, my family and I sat huddled around her bed in the intensive-care unit, oscillating between panic, fear, uncertainty, and exhaustion. It was nurses that got us through that time with our sanity intact. Nurses checked on my […]

While policymakers are increasingly aware of the role direct care workers play in supporting families and driving the economy, the policy discourse rarely posits solutions for remedying the growing workforce shortage in this sector. In 2017, PHI launched a high-profile public education campaign to draw attention to these workers, while offering 60 concrete ideas to […]

Why did women’s rush into the work force stop? Policymakers have been vexed by the question for years. Social scientists have discussed the sudden stop for over a decade, in conferences and academic papers. Almost 12 years ago, I gave the topic a shot in the pages of The Times: why, after a five-decade rise, did the labor-force participation of […]

Do you know who is going to care for you when you are old and frail? By current standards, it’s likely to be a middle-aged immigrant woman, with maybe a high school education and little if any training, making $20,000 a year. And that’s if you are lucky. If you live in rural America, you […]