Caregiving and Women’s History Month

Harboring Hearts would like to wish everyone a happy Women’s History Month! In the spirit of celebrating the achievements of women everywhere, we would like to take the time to uplift female caregivers.  

The majority of care work is done both informally, such as within family systems, and institutionally, such as within medical systems, by women. According to the Family Caregiver Alliance, an estimated 66% of family caregivers are women. Additionally, PHI International finds that “one in four home care workers (19 percent) is a Hispanic/Latina woman” and “one in three nursing assistants is a Black/African American woman (33 percent),” meaning that care work is done predominantly by women, particularly women of color. 

The work that women provide, both as family members and medical practitioners, to care for transplant receipts is invaluable, so much so that many doctors will not proceed with a transplant until a designated caregiver has been identified. 

However, there are also many struggles caregivers face. Currently, the United States has no mandatory paid family leave, creating a financial burden for many caregivers and disproportionally impacting women in the workplace, especially women of color. Additionally, care work can be physically and emotionally demanding for both family and medical caregivers. 

At Harboring Hearts we seek to improve the lives of and remove burdens from heart, liver, and pediatric transplant recipients as well as their families and caregivers. This is why in addition to financial support Harboring Hearts prioritizes emotional support, caregiver food delivery, and community events. We celebrate and acknowledge the amazing work done by female caregivers this month! Thank you to all our caregivers. 

Sources:

https://phinational.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Racial-and-Gender-Disparities-in-DCW-PHI-2017.pdf

https://www.caregiver.org/resource/women-and-caregiving-facts-and-figures/