“Seniors wait months for home care: Workers in short supply.”
“Nursing homes bleed staff as Amazon lures low-wage workers with Prime packages”
“Hospitals offer incentives, but nursing shortage remains a problem”
The headlines speak for themselves. Our health care industry is sick and broken. Minimum wages, unpredictable work schedules, performing physically and mentally exhausting work, and in many cases, no employee benefits are all factors that keep potential workers away from the care industry.
The aging of the Baby Boomers coupled with the caregiver shortage was predicted. But what no one could predict was the pandemic on top of everything else. Overall, more than 5.4 million women went missing in the workforce in the first year of the pandemic, nearly 1 million more job losses than men. [1] How many had to stop working to care for their children and elders? Are you one of them?
As long as things are the way they are, and not getting better anytime soon, there is no time to waste. Take matters into your own hands. Finding help now requires “systems of care that position caregiving less as a bundle of services and more as a web of relationships that encourage human flourishing.” [2]
Everyone is aging. An important goal of the “Share the Care” section of The Complete Eldercare Planner is to expand your idea of what we can accomplish together as a nation of caregivers. An entire vista of new and rewarding relationships is waiting to be forged. People-to-people. Young and old. Rich and poor. The only ownership required is the commonwealth of the greater good.
[1] “All of the Jobs Lost in December Were Women’s Jobs,” by Claire Ewing-Nelson, (Washington: National Women’s Law Center, 2021), https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/December-Jobs-Day.pdf
[2] “We Need a New Economic Category,” By Anne-Marie Slaughter and Hilary Cottam, September 23, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/new-economy-caregiving/620160/