Caregiver Support by Numbers | PAAL
In the executive summary on the Wellesley Centers for Women on Women’s Leadership in Resident Theaters, officially completed in 2018, the assessment for work life balance included an important note regarding caregivers: “the discussion of family responsibility appears to be a taboo, and therefore presents a high and hidden hurdle to progression for those who care for others.” As one of the founding studies for the work done by Parent Artist Advocacy League, one of the initiatives includes eradicating the taboo nature of caregiver realities by not only breaking the silence on their existence but also connecting them to the reality of their impact on contributors to our field and the larger socio-economic conversations. By connecting data in our field from both obstacles and solutions to data gathered by studies with broader range, we may find inspiration and clearer direction in how to not only eliminate hidden hurdles, but also create initiatives that lead to real progress in terms of support for caregivers in our field.
MAMMOTH IMPACT FROM MICRO-STIPENDS
In our national campaign to gather stories of and interviews with caregivers and the institutions that support them, anecdotes everything from receiving overwhelming support to discomfort initiating the conversation on support to full resistance, even termination, as a result of inquiring after support. One of the common themes in every scenario, however, is the financial burden of childcare, for both employee and freelance individuals. Even community-based studies, such as the surveys from Parents in Chicago Theatre (PICT) founded by PAAL Chief Chicago Rep Lydia Milman Schmidt, identify clear themes that “scheduling, low pay and the cost of childcare are the greatest barriers for parents working in theatre.” The PICT study found that “91% of parents have turned down theatre work because of scheduling or the cost of childcare.” In a survey done nationally by the New York Times, young adults are having fewer than their ideal number of children with 64% citing childcare as too expensive playing into the decision. While it was clear that the financial burden of childcare affects most caregivers, PAAL began to investigate how micro-stipends for childcare could influence work on an individual level.
We launched the first all-discipline, all-gender PAAL Childcare Grants for individuals in the performing arts and media with grants at $500, creating a $750 grant for a mother artist of color. In both granting years, over three-fourths of the individuals who applied for these grants identified as women. In both granting years, over 80% of applicants were freelance. In the second granting year, when given the option, close to 90% were pursuing financial support for childcare in order to pursue a creative path. Applicants emphasized the support of this microgrant, including that “a $500 grant would cover one writing day per week for two months;” “After-School Program: $77/wk indefinitely,” and for the hours spent in tech, “Babysitter at $15/hr Approximately 50 Hours of Child Care: Would cover Focus, 2 days of Tech and Dress rehearsal and Previews, the rest of the time I would need to spend additional funds or have baby with me at the theatre. I recently tracked how much I spent on childcare for my son while I worked on a local project and it came out to $770 for 10 days.”
To assess the cost comparison of individual to institution, an equity LORT B contract pays $941 per week before taxes. After taxes and withholding, the income can total around $630 per week. According to a report in USA Today from the 2012 INA Nanny Salary and Benefits Survey, “national average gross weekly salary for full time live-out nannies is $705,” the report likely not considering extended hours such as tech and previews that plague caregivers in the performing arts, specifically. The resulting percentage of a freelance individual on a regional equity contract for an average week demands 112% of their income. When institutions provide financial support, however, the percentages shift dramatically. In interviews with The TEAM and Elevator Repair Service, both presenters at the PAAL Summit for their years providing financial compensation for childcare and other support, the money spent on childcare amounted to less than 2% of the annual budget.
DIVING DEEPER INTO FAMILY, CULTURE, AND LEAVE POLICIES
Last year, Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) launched its first national study for data gathering among its member theatres. Theatre for Young Audiences boasts 800 members from around the country who are focused on creating work for young artists, specifically. At the PAAL National Summit for Caregiver Support, Jonathan Schmidt Chapman presented numbers on maternity/paternity leave provisions from a survey conducted by Theatre for Young Audiences to their members theatres. One of the data points he highlighted included the total lack of maternity leave in theatres that fall into the $250,000-$499,999 range as well as complete lack of paternity leave for theatres in the $250,000-$499,999 and $500,000-$999,999 ranges. The survey specified maternity and paternity leave as designations outside of paid vacation time. One of the possibilities for the drops in provision as theatres grow is the legal requirement for leave offered must cover all employees, and — as organizations scale up in size — the increased cost of maternity and paternity leave coverage becomes financially
At the Latinx Theatre Commons convening in Miami, FL, PAAL partnered with LTC for the first national conversation on caregiver support in the Latinx community, specifically. Themes included childcare support and leave, specifically, but also of great importance to the community was family and medical leave for elder care, specifically. The conversation was particularly potent in the younger demographic who did not yet have children but anticipated a high likelihood of being responsible for their parents later in life, likely — as one put it — right when their career trajectory was “taking off.” Culturally speaking, many participants confirmed that the expectation of family members being responsible for elder care is high in the Latinx community, specifically. These anecdotes have national data to support the concerns in terms of the labor market at large in the United States. In 2018, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics published a report based on four nationally represented data sets to assess “how access to and use of employer-provided paid family and medical leave vary by race and ethnicity.” In terms of the impact of lack of leave on the Latinx community, the article highlighted that “across the various types of leave considered, the most consistent finding is that Hispanic workers have lower rates of paid-leave access than their White non-Hispanic counterparts. These differentials — in access to any paid family or medical leave, as well as to specific types of leave, such as paid parental leave and paid leave to care for a sick family member, for one’s own illness, and for eldercare — are sizable in the raw data.” When cultural expectation meets statistically sizable difference in paid leave, the Latinx community — and likely more communities of color — are, at large, deprived of the support necessary for employment sustainability when it comes to caregiving.
As our field works to improve opportunity, sustainability, and support for women of color, specifically, it must contend not only with how the lack of leave and caregiver support exponentially harms opportunities for women of color who become caregivers, but also how it exponentially benefits them when provided. A study on paid disability leave in five different states by Jenna Stearns in the Journal of Health Economics found that “these programs led to improved infant health, with the largest effects accruing to disadvantaged African American and unmarried mothers.” Equalizing impact was also documented in a study on California’s paid leave by Maya Rossin-Slater, et. al in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, finding that “[l]eavetaking increased the most for mothers who were non-White, who were not college graduates, and who were unmarried…Estimates for subgroups suggest that Black non-Hispanic mothers saw the largest absolute gain in leavetaking. Their maternity leave increased by 10.6 percentage points (relative to their baseline rate of 2 percent), for a predicted increase of about 6 weeks.”
In 2012, Theatre Communications Group published a report on their most recent benefits survey that also included a snapshot of maternity and paternity leave statistics. Only 69% of theatres who participated in the survey provided leave in any way at all, and only 36% offered maternity leave and 27% offered paternity leave, both percentages being of the 69%, meaning only 25% for maternity leave and 19% for paternity leave provided at all theatres surveyed. Nationally, the numbers align when considering that in 2018, 17% of civilian workers had paid leave, according to the U.S. Bureau for Labor Statistics. While the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has statistically improved leave opportunity the theatre field is not considered particularly progressive in terms of how it provides for its workers, as many of the jobs do not fulfill the FMLA requirements due to the field’s dependence on freelance, part-time, and volunteer workers.
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS AND MOVING FORWARD
One of PAAL’s goals is to make a record of creative solutions to the much needed support for caregivers that the law does not always define in a way that applies to many artists and contributors in the performing arts. Actively seeking creative solutions for paid leave opportunities can directly impact employees within an organization who need paid family leave in order to sustain employment. In an initiative started at the PAAL Summit, we began gathering creative solutions to some of the financially prohibitive needs presented to institutions seeking to support caregivers better. Roberta Pereira, producing director of The Playwrights Realm, contributed to the session on creative solutions at the PAAL National Summit for Caregiver Support regarding her maternity leave, specifically. The Realm had developed a reserve fund for artistic risk that — in the year of Pereira’s pregnancy — expanded to include support for her maternity leave, in alignment with the funds mission to support a theatre contributor. The reserve fund provided flexibility for Pereira as well as sustainability for the institution. Before presenting the numbers on paid leave from TYA, Chapman took the opportunity to voice a call to action for the theatre field at large to assess how we as a community value young people and discriminate against kids and families. He pointed out the connection between how the field fails to appropriately value art for young people and families with how it discriminates against families and young people in the culture and policies. “When we look internationally,” he adds, “the ways we view childhood in the arts and creating for young people are much more fluid…in our country, it’s very siloed.” He offered his thoughts for potential steps forward in reducing bias by encouraging the community to “create more symbiotic relationships between [‘theatre for young audiences’ and ‘theatre for adults’].”
As PAAL grows its granting program, we will also continue our PAAL Institution Childcare Match Grant, which has been awarded alongside the grants for individuals. The primary goal of the match grants is to partner with institutions so they can commit to childcare as a budget line item so that their financial narrative and value system reflects the socio-economic responsibility of caregiving. PAAL’s research will continue to grow and track the impact of support with larger studies coming for our field in the near future. In a conversation with Ineke Ceder, co-researcher on the Wellesley Centers for Women’s study and member of PAAL’s advisory board, I asked what surprised them most about the theatres that sustained women leadership and had the most supportive policies. She answered that they were surprised how many thriving theatres run by women were started by the women themselves, directly connecting a supportive environment to structures designed by the ones for whom access needs apply. As our field moves forward in assessing the demographic impacts of various initiatives, we must include the impact of structural caregiving support on our community and invest in its potential. For many institutions, the prospect of supporting caregivers falls hypothetically far outside financial sustainability. However, when looking at the impact of small steps toward change, we may realize that we can’t afford not supporting caregivers if we want to see progress in how we eliminate barriers and and diversify our field.
