Care.com launched in 2006 as a platform that helps dad and mom discover babysitters and nannies. However practically twenty years later, the corporate got here throughout some disconcerting information: In response to Pew, 64% of younger girls and 50% of younger males don’t need kids, a determine that has been rising in recent times.
As Care.com carried out its personal analysis, it found that one vital purpose for this phenomenon is that younger persons are overwhelmed by all of the completely different types of care they need to present. In a survey, the corporate discovered that 28% of individuals have caregiving duties for folks, grandparents, and different family members; 35% say this makes them much less prone to have kids. Certainly, by 2034, the number of seniors will outpace children.
“So many people live within the ‘sandwich technology,’ caring for each youngsters and ageing dad and mom,” says Brad Wilson, Care.com’s CEO. “There’s a compounding impact.”
Care.com believes it might higher place itself to be a useful resource at this cultural second, offering rather more than simply childcare, but in addition senior care, pet care, dwelling companies, and even discovering summer time camps for youths. In the present day, it’s unveiling a brand new model identification that highlights a extra complete method to caregiving. It additionally launching new instruments that assist households handle the psychological load of juggling all these completely different caregivers.
However the firm additionally acknowledges that the caregiving disaster in America can also be rooted in systemic points, together with the excessive value of elevating kids and the shortage of presidency assist for households. So Care.com can also be enjoying a task in advocating company and authorities insurance policies that carry down the price of caregiving.
A Compounding Burden
Care.com has noticed the rising burden of caregiving, as society has advanced in latest a long time. For one factor, as girls’s workforce participation has elevated, extra households are in search of daycare, nannies, and babysitters. Additionally, People now not dwell in multigenerational households. “Households now not really feel like they’ve a ‘village’ to lift their baby,” says Meiling Tan, Care.com’s VP of Model. “Grandparents typically dwell throughout the nation. We don’t dwell in locations the place we are able to ask a neighbor for assist in a pinch.”
Wilson factors out that the pandemic exacerbated this case. In the course of the lockdowns, dad and mom needed to work whereas additionally caring for their kids, resulting in overwhelm. {Many professional} caregivers additionally felt burnt out and left the trade altogether. And the price of care saved rising. “There’s lots of psychological anguish round caregiving,” he says. “Individuals are shedding sleep about all of this.”
Care.com permits customers to seek for caregivers totally free; it additionally affords a premium membership that prices between $13 and $40, which provides you extra options like limitless messaging and entry to a broader vary of caregivers. The corporate has been steadily including new companies to fulfill the wants of its clients. Within the realm of childcare, for example, the platform affords tutoring, night time nurses, camps, and assist discovering preschools. However importantly, the corporate now affords extra types of look after adults, from housekeeping companies to assist with post-surgery restoration and canine strolling. In terms of senior care, it affords every thing from hospice assist to reminiscence care.
And but, the corporate says most individuals nonetheless see Care.com as a platform that focuses on childcare assist, which is why it has invested in a complete rebrand to assist change this notion. In the present day, it unveils a brand new brand: It’s a inexperienced field with a big letter “C” with a smaller letter “c” nestled inside it. The font and the inexperienced shade scheme is a change from earlier coral palette. The imagery on the positioning, in addition to within the new promoting marketing campaign, will emphasize various kinds of care. “Earlier than the positioning undoubtedly felt extra childlike,” says Tan. “We wished to revamp our homepage to make it look extra subtle, and present that we offer extra holistic care.”
This rebranding is designed to spur progress for Care.com. The crew hopes it’s going to entice clients who might not know all of the companies the corporate supplies, whereas additionally introducing current clients to new sorts of caregiving. Care.com constructed its consumer base with the assistance of enterprise capital: It obtained a complete of $156.8 million in funding between its 2006 launch and 2012. Then, in 2019, it was acquired for $500 million by IAC, the conglomerate that additionally operates Dotdash and Individuals journal. Over the previous twenty years, it’s confronted a rising array of rivals, from platforms like UrbanSitter and Sittercity, to Fb teams, which allow babysitters to attach with dad and mom in a selected neighborhood.
A Psychological Burden
Together with this rebrand, the corporate can also be centered on serving to handle the complexity and stress of juggling all these completely different types of care. As an illustration, making a shortlist of nannies then interviewing them is a laborious process. Care.com has launched a messaging platform that permits you to simply eradicate caregivers from a search or hold them within the working. Quickly, it’s going to launch a hiring hub the place you possibly can take notes on the backend and kind by means of candidates extra effectively.
It’s also unveiling an AI search operate so you possibly can lay out what you’re in search of in a caregiver in your personal phrases. The platform will then seek for the fitting individual utilizing descriptions from the caregivers’ profiles. “You’ll be able to ask for a meal prep guru or somebody who loves artwork to allow them to do crafts along with your youngsters,” says Tan. “And we’ll ship outcomes tailor-made to your wants.”
Care.com customers have additionally stated that security is a giant reason for concern. So the brand new web site will function a security heart that explains the platform’s sturdy background checks, from an preliminary legal test to steady monitoring of caregivers. It additionally permits you to pay for extra complete background checks. (There’s additionally a devoted security crew at Care.com that’s accessible across the clock for customers to name within the case of a disaster.)
Systemic Issues
Wilson factors out that whereas Care.com could be useful to People scuffling with all their duties, the caregiving disaster is a product of many systemic points. Paying for caregivers may be very costly, and plenty of households really feel crushed by these prices.
One answer Care.com has developed Look after Enterprise, the place it companions with corporations who will pay to offer workers free premium Care.com memberships and likewise subsidize the price of caregivers. Staff can get entry to “backup care” for days when common caregiving falls by means of; a caregiver could be despatched on the final minute so the worker can return to work. “We’ve discovered that workers with caregiving advantages usually tend to keep at their job and never miss days of labor,” says Wilson. “That is nice for the worker, but it surely’s additionally nice for the employer.”
However finally, Wilson says that a part of the burden American households really feel has to do with the shortage of presidency assist. Care.com does coverage work, advocating for baby tax credit, for example. And Wilson himself is the cochair of the Way forward for the Care Economic system on the World Financial Discussion board, the place he advocates for leaders all over the world to prioritize the care sector.
For Tan, a part of her work as head of branding is to raise the function of caregivers in society by means of the model’s web site and promoting. “From private expertise, lots of our caregivers discuss themselves as simply a babysitter or simply a nanny,” she says. “We’re attempting to vary the narrative in order that caregiving is a revered, celebrated career. Caregivers do greater than assist households; they’re what retains our economic system going.”
