Having conducted extensive research and released a book on the topic, Assistant Professor Amanda Freeman wrote an essay published in TIME magazine on family care work, along with its effects on mothers and children.
She co-authored the essay (and her book, “Getting Me Cheap: How Low-wage Work Traps Women and Girls in Poverty”) with Lisa Dodson, research professor emerita at Boston College. Freeman teaches sociology and criminal justice in the University of Hartford’s College of Arts and Sciences.
The TIME piece, “Why Millions of Girls Are Doing Unpaid Care Work This Summer,” discusses the issue of children forgoing the “break” aspect of summer break by having to care for their siblings and take on work at home, as their mothers put in long hours in one or more jobs to make ends meet.
“As feminist critics have long recognized, this rendering of “women’s work” as invisible has been harmful to the economic progress of women. We found that the harm starts in girlhood and the root of this kind of child labor is parents’ low wages,” Freeman and Dodson write.
Childcare solutions would bridge such gaps, offer more options for families, and provide time for children’s enrichment opportunities that would support their education and pave the way for a successful future, they Freeman and Dodson say.