A “Freedom-to” Work–Care Agenda

The authors show how corporate human resources policies prioritize only one category of response to work–care conflict and propose new and different policies to address caregiving ambition. Work–life policies and programs are based on categorizing caregiving as an obligation, not as an ambition, and therefore focus on helping employees provision care, not provide it directly, even if this is what many want to do. This unnecessarily narrow approach is woefully insufficient and perpetuates an already unsatisfactory status quo. At its core, the work–life movement’s efforts to reduce work–care conflict are aligned with the employer, who has a much easier time arguing for accommodations that afford “freedom-from” caregiving than for those that afford “freedom-to” be an ambitious caregiver while also being a valuable employee. While “freedom-from” accommodations are likely to fulfill the needs of people with high provisioning caregiving ambition, “freedom-to” accommodations are likely to fulfill the needs of people with high providing caregiving ambition.