-: So the care economy, if you think about it,
it's really, there's two parts of it.
One is the paid care economy.
I think that's what we typically think of.
People delivering elder care in nursing homes,
in assisted living facilities.
People delivering childcare
in childcare centers.
And that's big, as you describe.
It's a $2 trillion economy
in terms of the pay piece.
-: $2 trillion.
-: 2 trillion
-: Okay.
And that's not the gray economy.
That's actually the,
that is the reported number
in terms of the economy.
There's also an unpaid portion of it.
So, if you think about it, many of us,
yourself, we've discussed this, you
have been caregivers,
either for children or for parents,
or sometimes at at the same time.
That is another, if you value that work,
which we value that work,
that's another $4 trillion.
So the overall care economy,
just in the US alone,
$6 trillion with four children,
4 trillion being in the unpaid portion
of the economy.
-: It's interesting that it's actually
the unpaid caregivers,
the people who are taking care of their kids,
the people who are taking care of their parents,
even, because we know that with the baby boomers
we have this generation of people
who are sandwiched between
the two responsibilities.
That is a huger, a bigger portion,
of the care economy
than the paid sector, which is nannies,
nurses, home care attendants,
daycare centers, that sort of thing.
-: That's right,
That's exactly right, two-thirds.
It's two-thirds, the unpaid portion.
-: And so what are the economics of this,
and why are they getting so much worse,
and why are we seeing numbers like that
as far as an impact on the GDP?
-: That's a great question.
So, so, so you think about care
and you think about it being a social issue,
and it is completely a social issue,
but it is a core economic issue.
So let me just briefly describe that.
If you look at unfilled vacant jobs today
in the US, the number's 11 million.
11 million unfilled jobs.
If you look at the care economy,
1.8 million jobs are unfilled.
There's interrelatedness
in terms of these two numbers, okay?
So many of us count on paid caregivers to care
for our parents, our children,
our, whatever that is.
And so there's, when you don't have enough people
in the care economy, you don't have people to,
so there, there's-
-: You can't delegate.
You can't delegate.
And so let me just frame that
up in terms of supply and demand.
So, if you look at the supply side
I'll quote one statistic.
Since Covid,
one-third of childcare facilities
have either had to shut down
or have had to cut their care
by 50% or more because
they can't find enough qualified workers.
-: What, what's happening?
Are people just quitting, or...?
-: Well, much has been said
about the great resignation, Elizabeth,
but the truth is
the wages are low.
It's typically thought of as "women's work,"
so only appealing to the segment of the economy.
Another core reason is
many of these people actually have to take care
of their own children or,
so the combination of all those factors
means that the supply
is constrained and it's relatively low.
And on the demand side,
it's increasing.
So if you think about the baby boom generation
and the aging of that generation
and more and more people living to be 80, 90,
which is a great thing,
but in that age sector, you know,
they often need care.
So, so there's a demand issue,
there's increasing demand
and there's a supply issue,
which is constrained supply.