Caregiving for family members and other loved ones including children, older, ill and disabled people, overwhelmingly done by women inside and outside the home, keeps economies and society going but impoverishes those who do it.

While caregivers, unwaged and waged, demand that their work be valued and justly rewarded, and those who need their help demand choices about the care they are entitled to, a low-wage, for-profit care industry is booming. This exploitative industry employs mainly women, often of color and/or immigrant, or replaces them with uncaring AI. 

The Our Right to Care conference will bring together academics, researchers, advocates, community organizers, unpaid and paid caregivers and those who depend on care locally, nationally and internationally, to look at how caring relationships based on promoting choice, independent living and mutual respect can be financially supported rather than expanding a care industry based on profits, forced dependence, low standards, low pay and exploitation. The conference will establish the human and social right to care and to access the care we choose when we need it.