Care.com launched in 2006 as a platform that helps dad and mom discover babysitters and nannies. However almost twenty years later, the corporate got here throughout some disconcerting information: In accordance with 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 cause for this phenomenon is that younger individuals 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 fogeys, 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 reside within the ‘sandwich technology,’ caring for each children and getting older dad and mom,” says Brad Wilson, Care.com’s CEO. “There’s a compounding impact.”
Care.com believes it could actually higher place itself to be a useful resource at this cultural second, offering rather more than simply childcare, but additionally senior care, pet care, dwelling providers, and even discovering summer time camps for teenagers. Right this moment, it’s unveiling a brand new model id 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 be rooted in systemic points, together with the excessive value of elevating kids and the dearth of presidency help for households. So Care.com can be taking part in a job 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 developed in latest a long time. For one factor, as girls’s workforce participation has elevated, extra households are on the lookout for daycare, nannies, and babysitters. Additionally, Individuals now not stay in multigenerational households. “Households now not really feel like they’ve a ‘village’ to lift their little one,” says Meiling Tan, Care.com’s VP of Model. “Grandparents usually stay throughout the nation. We don’t stay in locations the place we will ask a neighbor for assist in a pinch.”
Wilson factors out that the pandemic exacerbated this example. Throughout the lockdowns, dad and mom needed to work whereas additionally taking good care of their kids, resulting in overwhelm. {Many professional} caregivers additionally felt burnt out and left the trade altogether. And the price of care stored growing. “There’s lots of psychological anguish round caregiving,” he says. “Persons are dropping 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 providers to fulfill the wants of its prospects. 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 take care of adults, from housekeeping providers to assist with post-surgery restoration and canine strolling. With regards to senior care, it affords every thing from hospice help to reminiscence care.
And but, the corporate says most individuals nonetheless see Care.com as a platform that focuses on childcare help, which is why it has invested in a complete rebrand to assist change this notion. Right this moment, 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 refined, and present that we offer extra holistic care.”
This rebranding is designed to spur progress for Care.com. The workforce hopes it can entice prospects who might not know all of the providers the corporate offers, whereas additionally introducing present prospects to new sorts of caregiving. Care.com constructed its person 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 Folks 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 specific neighborhood.
A Psychological Burden
Together with this rebrand, the corporate can be centered on serving to handle the complexity and stress of juggling all these completely different types of care. For example, 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 can launch a hiring hub the place you possibly can take notes on the backend and kind via candidates extra effectively.
Additionally it is unveiling an AI search operate so you possibly can lay out what you might be on the lookout for in a caregiver in your individual phrases. The platform will then seek for the suitable particular person utilizing descriptions from the caregivers’ profiles. “You possibly can ask for a meal prep guru or somebody who loves artwork to allow them to do crafts together with your children,” says Tan. “And we’ll ship outcomes tailor-made to your wants.”
Care.com customers have additionally stated that security is a giant reason behind concern. So the brand new web site will characteristic a security heart that explains the platform’s sturdy background checks, from an preliminary legal examine to steady monitoring of caregivers. It additionally permits you to pay for extra complete background checks. (There’s additionally a devoted security workforce at Care.com that’s obtainable across the clock for customers to name within the case of a disaster.)
Systemic Issues
Wilson factors out that whereas Care.com will be useful to Individuals fighting 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 resolution Care.com has developed Take care of Enterprise, the place it companions with firms who will pay to offer staff free premium Care.com memberships and likewise subsidize the price of caregivers. Workers can get entry to “backup care” for days when common caregiving falls via; a caregiver will be despatched on the final minute so the worker can return to work. “We’ve discovered that staff with caregiving advantages usually tend to keep at their job and never miss days of labor,” says Wilson. “That is nice for the worker, however it’s additionally nice for the employer.”
However in the end, Wilson says that a part of the burden American households really feel has to do with the dearth of presidency help. Care.com does coverage work, advocating for little one 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 world wide 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 via 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 financial system going.”
