California Homecare Workers Collaborative

Lead research project: the Retirement Paradox for California’s Aging Workforce in the Homecare Industry

The Retirement Paradox for California’s Aging Workforce in the Homecare Industry investigates a core contradiction: those who support others in aging with dignity face systematic barriers to retirement security in their own lives. Despite performing essential care, homecare workers—the vast majority of whom are immigrants and women of color and paid family caregivers—face fragmented employment, low wages and legal exclusions that have left many without pensions, savings or access to social security. This multi-year project led by an interdisciplinary project team from the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) and key community partners examines how workers are navigating pervasive retirement insecurity, including what resources they rely on, what gaps remain and what policy solutions they propose. Using surveys, interviews and focus groups, the project offers a lens into the crises of care and social reproduction that is undermining the lives and futures of aging workers in an aging society and the urgent need for structural reform.

Project leads: Jennifer Jihye Chun and Saba Waheed

Research Team: Lucero Herrera, Monica Macias, Noah Zatz and Katherine Marino

Graduate student researchers: Sandra Garcia and Yurim Lee

Community partners: Amanda Steele, SEIU 2015; Michelle Mattingly and Desmond Prescott, United Domestic Workers; Aquilina Soriano Versoza, Pilipino Workers Center

Supported by the UCLA Social Impact Transformative Grant (2024-25)