Making Caring Count March Newsletter Issue 3#3

Trends and innovations

AI in the care economy: Meet ElliQ, the AI-based proactive social robot promoting healthier, happier aging. ElliQ is the first ever voice-operated care companion aimed at keeping older adults active and engaged by connecting them to their families and the outside world. ElliQ includes an easy-to-use tablet, multi-user app, and continually contextualized prompts. For instance, if a user just got a hip replacement, ElliQ will suggest seated stretches or introduce breathing exercises, rather than checking in on the user’s typical walking routine. It also engages older adults in mind-expanding conversations and multimedia experiences, like having coffee while visiting museum exhibitions from Paris. The ElliQ robot, called a Time Best Invention of 2022, has shown the ability to decrease loneliness by 80%, according to its developer, Intuition Robotics. bit.ly/3VfAUk5

Cleo: The first and only global solution providing holistic support to working families from planning a family to caring for an adult loved one. Cleo is the only global family and caregiver employee benefit platform that provides direct support from family planning and pregnancy through taking care of newborns and young children through teens and adults. Cleo offers a proactive care model via health experts and specialists combined with an intuitive, always-on digital platform. Together, they provide members with a personalized, impactful member experience. With diverse backgrounds as midwives, parent coaches, social workers, and more, Cleo Guides help members through whatever challenges arise, either directly or by tapping into their broader global care network. bit.ly/3VKQ29t

News that made headlines

Equal Pay Day: In the ongoing fight for equal pay, women can lose up to $1.6 trillion each year because of the gender pay gap. March 12 was Equal Pay Day in the U.S., a day that marked yet another year of women fighting for equal wages in the workforce. Equal Pay Day serves as a reminder of the ongoing income inequality between men and women. According to the National Women’s Law analysis of ?U.S. Census Bureau data, women earn just 84 cents for every dollar earned by men. March 12 symbolizes how far into the year female workers must work to earn what their male counterparts earned in the previous year. The disparity becomes more pronounced with time as shown by the National Women’s Law Center which found that a woman starting out in the workforce will earn $399,600 less over a 40-year career compared with men. Some contributing factors to why the gender pay gap persists include women being more likely to pursue careers in lower-paying industries, and leaving the labor force or reducing the number of hours worked due to caregiving responsibilities, also known as the “motherhood penalty”. Research indicates that pay transparency laws, enacted by American states and municipalities, can help close the wage gap. Ultimately, real parity for women workers requires critical investments in paid leave, childcare, and other support systems that improve working families’ lives. bit.ly/3Vv8YZs

?News from around the world

Moms need support at work. Here’s how employers can help them thrive. International Women’s Day (8th March) celebrates the accomplishments and progress towards gender equity, including in the workplace. Working mothers are one group that have made great progress, with recent data showing that parents of young children are employed at record levels. Nonetheless, they continue to face hurdles that hinder their professional growth while caring for their children. Working moms thrive when organizations provide support that meets their needs, they want to be seen and heard by their employers and to be included in decision-making about parental benefits and policies. Moms still face a number of challenges that hold them back from thriving, including socioeconomic issues such as access to and affordability of childcare as well as cultural attitudes and pressure toward working motherhood. Despite the dismal outlook, there are opportunities for employers to contribute to the solution: offering flexible scheduling, providing work-from-home options so moms can forgo expensive before-and-after-care programs, and assessing the costs of childcare in their area. People in leadership and management positions often miss the mark when they don’t engage with working moms for feedback or include them in the design of parent-focused initiatives, highlighting the importance of effective communication. bit.ly/43vLZPP

Raquel Lyra, Governor of Brazil’s most populous state, is rewriting the ECD playbook. Maternity and educational centers are just the start. Early childhood provides a good roadmap for designing policy in government—sitting at the intersection of a variety of services from education to health, social assistance public infrastructure. As the Mayor of Caruaru from 2017 to 2022, a municipality in the state of Pernambuco in north-eastern Brazil, Raquel Lyra used the national Early Childhood Legal Framework as a starting point to develop intersectoral municipal policies. These policies acknowledged that supporting children also involves supporting caregivers, often women, who often face pressure and stress due to their caregiving responsibilities. Further, the municipality built a new maternity hospital and 16 early childhood education centers, increasing the number of children served and allowing moms to gain access to training leading to a professional qualification. Additionally, they partnered with the Van Leer Foundation's Urban95 program to boost data collection and sharing across education, health and social assistance that enabled them to identify women in need of support. As the current Governor of Pernambuco, Raquel Lyra envisions a State Plan that will include intersectoral actions, from the prenatal stage to a child’s support network, identifying obstacles and implement solutions from building maternity units to creating 60,000 new openings in daycare facilities across the state, and improve the quality of early childhood education in partnership with municipalities. bit.ly/4aoD5pL

Sweden’s 50-year-old state-funded parental leave policy, designed for couples to share, offers surprising lessons for other countries. Since 1974, Sweden has granted parents, including LGBTQ+, adoptive, and single parents, a generous state-funded package of 480 days off work, making it one of the most generous state-funded packages globally. Initially, the shared parental leave policy saw dads take up just 0.5% of all leave days; by 1995, for the first time 30 days of leave were reserved for each parent, with the aim of incentivizing equal benefit sharing. This “use -it-or-lose-it policy increased to 60 days in 2002 and 90 days in 2016, resulting in men taking on a larger share of parental leave days. Shared parental leave has significantly impacted Swedish workplace culture, as parents who split leave often share childcare responsibilities. This shift eliminates the norm of working late or paying for private childcare. Sweden’s experiences offer some valuable lessons for other countries aiming to encourage parents of all genders to take more parental leave. The poor parental leave uptake by Swedish dads prior to the “use-it-or-lose-it quotas necessitates similar incentivized reforms to drive radical change elsewhere, requiring countries to offer strong incentives to push change. bit.ly/3TLkCOE

What we’re listening to

Podcast: Thriving while Aching with Laurie Ferguson PhD. S2, Ep4- Companionship on the Trail: Alyssa’s Path to Caregiving. In this episode, Laurie Ferguson explores a unique facet of caregiving as Alyssa, a young woman passionate about hiking, unexpectedly forges a deep bond with an older woman (lovingly known as “new grandma”) who she met while walking her service dog Kernal. This chance encounter grows into a meaningful companionship enriched by shared walks, a mutual love for dogs and nature, and emotional support. Together, they navigate through the obstacles of aging and the pain of loss, while celebrating the joys of friendship and shared interests of photography. Alyssa realizes that caregiving isn’t just about assistance; it’s about connection. Listen to the full episode here bit.ly/4cjx0fU