Introduction

In the past several decades, women in the United States have both increased their presence in the workforce while at the same time have maintained or even intensified the care they provide to others – young children and, increasingly, aging parents and loved ones. Women, on average, still spend far more time than men every day on household chores and caring for family members, as well as the largely invisible planning, logistics, organizing, and mental and emotional labor required to run a house and keep families together.

Ahead of the 2020 election season, we partnered with the YWCA to ask women how those family responsibilities impact their ability to keep their jobs or advance in the workplace and what they think would best help them manage work and care. The YWCA national survey, YWomenVote2020, oversamples women of color and young women, offering a unique opportunity to elevate the voices of women whose experiences and beliefs are often missing from survey research.