"pink collar" worker

PHI’s call for investment in the eldercare/disability services workforce as part of the economic recovery plan has been echoed by economists and advocacy organizations across the country. Like PHI, these groups are calling for more “pink” jobs—i.e., jobs in health care, education, and social services usually held by women.

PHI has recently featured interviews with two economists who have pushed for investment in America’s caregiving infrastructure: Robert Kuttner and Randy Albelda.

In December, in response to the outpouring of commentaries on the subject, a new group of academics calling themselves WEAVE—Women’s Equality Adds Value to the Economy—sent a letter with more than 1,000 signatures to Obama, asking for the government to stimulate jobs in education, health care, child and elder care. WEAVE urged Obama to avoid the mistakes of the New Deal, when most new job creation was geared toward male and white workers.

In a February article in Women’s Enews, Mimi Abramovitz, professor at Hunter College School of Social Work, argued in “Female Workers Can Jolt Economy; Look at Japan” that we should learn from the mistakes made by Japan during its “decade-long economic collapse.”  She explains that the Japan Institute for Local Government, a nonprofit research group, found that every 1 trillion yen, or $11.2 billion, spent on social services such as the care of the elderly, added 1.64 trillion yen in gross domestic product (GDP). By contrast, every 1 trillion yen spent on infrastructure projects in the 1990s increased Japan’s GDP by only 1.37 trillion yen.

Pink jobs have also been the theme of commentaries in The Huffington Post, Slate.com,  and the New York Times. Asked in the Times how to spend $500 billion to stimulate the economy, Nancy Folbre, professor at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, wrote in her response “The Ideal Stimulus Package”:

“I favor a pink and green stimulus. Investments in both human capital (education and health) and green energy (conservation and renewables) should be our top priorities, because they can generate long-run returns as well as short-term benefits, including job creation.

“…Low-wage workers — especially women — have benefited little from the economic growth of the last twenty years, and are especially vulnerable to job loss.

“…We could provide more generous support for the home care workers who make it possible for many sick, disabled and elderly individuals to avert more costly hospitalization or nursing home care. Public investments of $56 billion per year would roughly double our capacity in this area, financing higher wages and benefits, reducing turnover, and expanding availability.”

Eileen Boris, Hull professor and chair of the Department of Feminist Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, contributed her perspective on pink jobs at Salon.com in an op-ed titled “Women need an economic recovery too”:

“President-elect Obama can get the economy moving again by advancing gender equity instead of reinforcing the wage gap between men and women, which particularly hurts poor women of color. Feminist historians, economists and writers agree that we should rebuild the nation’s roads and bridges, make buildings energy efficient, and extend the information highway. But we also need to enhance the social infrastructure, bolstering not only a green economy but also the carework economy, by generating and improving pink jobs in home care, health and education.

“…. By all means train and employ women in the old blue-collar and the new green jobs. But for an immediate impact, invest for our future in those sectors, health and education, where women already work. Put money in women’s hands to support families. Turn the minimum wage into a living wage; raise the worth of care jobs; remove time limits from welfare and allow recipients to attend higher education; and encourage unionization. Let’s grow human comfort and happiness along with the economy — and move toward a more just society.”

For more on the need to invest in eldercare/disability jobs (about 90% of which are held by women), see FACTS 2 — Eldercare/Disability Services: Untapped Engine for Job Creation and Economic Growth (pdf).