Jessica Calarco’s new book tackles America’s caregiving gender gap. (Credit: Kelly Kendall Studios)

When it comes to unequal distribution of caregiving duties, author Jessica Calarco wrote the book on the matter – literally. 

Calarco, a sociologist by trade and an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, just released “Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net.” The book solidifies what many of us see in our everyday lives: Women continue to disproportionately shoulder the burden of caring for America’s children, elders and households.

In her book, Calarco shines a light on the inequities she witnessed through five years of research involving more than 400 hours of interviews with over 4,000 parents. What she observed through that work, in essence, was a social landscape in which women far more frequently mind the children and clean the homes.

She then contextualizes those observations by examining both state and federal laws and protections on the matter – finding them to be sorely lacking. For example, childcare costs are too much for many Americans to afford – and those that can, often find themselves dedicating the majority of their monthly incomes to it. Yet universal pre-k and other federal childcare investments were stripped from the Inflation Reduction Act that passed August 2022.

The combined result? Nowadays, about 53% of women report elevated stress levels and diminishing work/life balance – to the point of impacting their mental health and sparking a “burnout epidemic.” Yet we’re still left to shoulder the burden of America’s care.

Which is why Calarco calls the book both a “labor of fury” and a “labor of love.” She said to the Wisconsin Examiner, “It makes me very angry, but it also feels cathartic in a sense. This is something that I care very passionately about, and that resonates very deeply with my own experience.”

And she’s far from alone in that. Studies say that 65 percent of women serve as caregivers in their families, and spend 50 percent more time filling those roles than men. Research additionally shows that the majority of household chores also wind up on women’s to-do lists. (And as this viral web comic shows, even composing the to-do lists falls to women, too.)

The pandemic exacerbated matters, Calarco observed, further solidifying what she refers to as our “DIY society,” in which individuals are left to come up with their own solutions, without any official assistance to rely upon. In those moments, she says, women are most frequently forced “to sort of shoulder the burden of risk, and shoulder the burden of responsibility that comes with not investing in a social safety net.”

While shifts in personal mindsets are needed – with her book serving as an attempt to sound the alarm for all Americans to hear – what’s even more important aregovernmental assistance programs. Universal childcare and healthcare, paid family leave, and stipends for families with dependents are among those that would help the most, she says.

“We can’t outsource all of our care needs … but what we can do is make sure that everyone has more time and energy in their days, and in their lives.”