What are the chances that a caregiver you employ will need an abortion?
By: Jen Waldron
Pretty good.
After learning about the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, I was a bit shell shocked. It was one of those moments that made me do a double-take and question whether or not what I was seeing is real. For me and my colleagues who serve – or indirectly serve – older adults and their caregivers, it’s too real.
When deciding what I wanted to share with my senior care community, I realized that for me this issue is personal and I felt compelled to share my thoughts. While the chances of me ever needing an abortion are quite low, the case law that was just struck-down holds the same basis as the case law which allows me to be married to my wife and partner of 10+ years. And, if you talk with pretty much any healthcare provider out there, they will tell you that access to safe abortions are one-in-the-same with healthcare for women. But then I thought, do my colleagues, partners and business associates in the senior care community understand how this will affect caregivers more-so than the average person?
Home care owners: the chance are quite strong that your employees will be directly impacted by the lack of access to safe, legal abortions. And, as we all know, caregivers are the life-blood of our work. But, did you also know that the profile of a woman in the US who has an abortion is strikingly similar to the typical caregiver? Below is data from the New York Times and PHI National to consider:
According to the New York Times, the average person in the US who receives an abortion is:
Is Already a Mother.
Is in Her Late 20s.
Attended Some College.
Has a Low Income.
According to PHI National, caregiver (“direct care worker”) demographic profile in the US is:
86% of direct care workers are women
38% of all direct care workers are between the ages of 16 - 34
32% have some college
Median annual earnings are just $20,200.
“25% of women will have an abortion by the end of their child-bearing years.”
Let’s do some simple math about what this could mean for your home care business:
3.4 M home care workers * 86% of caregivers are women = 2.9M home care caregivers are women
2.9M women * 25% of women will have an abortion in their lifetime =
731,000 caregivers will have an abortion, statistically speaking.
What will happen if caregivers cannot access a safe, legal abortion? My bet (based on what we know about the income level of the average caregiver), these caregivers will drop out of the workforce. What’s the alternative? Small business owners offer child care as a benefit? The government offers substantial childcare subsidies to keep women in the workforce? Women who are caregivers demand continually higher wages so they can pay for childcare? Their simplest solution is to drop out of the workforce.
I don’t think I need to reiterate the worker shortfall that we’re facing as an industry as I wrote about it last week, too. Can your business handle 25% of employees leaving the workforce unexpectedly? What if it were 10%, or even 5%? I think we all know that the answer is, no, not at any level.
Think of it this way: The median lifetime value of a caregiver to a home care agency is around $15,000. In my experience, the average home care agency has anywhere between 50-100 employees. If an average agency loses 5% of its employees who are forced to bear children they don’t want to have or shouldn’t have medically, that’s about $75K of caregiver LTV out the window per agency. Not to mention the opportunity cost increased by simply not having enough caregivers on your ‘bench.’
The reality of our situation in the home care industry is that we cannot afford to deny anyone access to safe, legal healthcare and abortions.
So, what can we all do?
Call your congress people and senators now to push forward legislation which makes it federal law to protect women’s access to safe and legal abortions.
Call your state and national trade associations to support your calls for federal legislation.
Make your own business’s policy about how you’ll support your employees that need an abortion.
What we’re doing at Augusta.care:
Augusta is still a very small business and even though we’re still getting off the ground, we’ve decided to put a policy in place to support any US employee who needs access to a safe, legal abortion and cannot get one in their state. We will reimburse travel expenses up to $1,500 for the employee to travel to a state where they can receive a safe-legal abortion. We are a very small company and I really don’t know how we will pay for these employee benefits yet. But, we’re committed to figuring out how to use our policies to continue to support women everywhere.
