Invisible Labor is a series of cinemagraphs on unpaid care work. Like the cinemagraph which loops to infinity, care labor has no end. Upon completion, it dissolves and must be done again. Around the world, women and girls complete two to ten times as much unpaid care work as men and boys. Essential labor— this includes domestic work, childcare, eldercare, and care for the sick and disabled. Care labor is the architecture that underpins functional society but whose name is nowhere etched into marble. This precious work, is performed by real people with their own finite bodies. When this work is treated as worthless, the mothers, aunties, sisters, grandmothers and daughters who perform it are left poorer and more precarious.

Each subject in the cinemagraphs below performs daily unpaid care work. Like the cinemagraph which loops to infinity, this work has no end. Upon completion, it dissolves and must be repeated.  

Melissa

Melissa lives in Brooklyn with her son Eros. Sharing a predicament common among workers in the United States, Melissa's full-time job as a cafe manager provided no maternity benefits. Determined to be present once her child was born, Melissa devised a way to self-fund a three-month “maternity leave”. To do this, she gave up her apartment and slept on a supportive friend's couch during her pregnancy. In another act of ingenuity, Melissa secured a nanny position with a family that allowed her to bring Eros while she watched their children, thus earning income while caring for her son. She also hustles to cover her family's expenses as a single mother, working odd jobs from yoga instructor to data entry. Though working around the clock, Melissa earns significantly less than before she had a child.

This mirrors U.S. and global statistics. The New York Times recently reported that women's earnings drop 4% after having a child, while men's increase by 6% when they become a father. Some think that this “motherhood penalty” is the main contributor to the gender pay gap. Despite all Melissa’s creative problem solving, she's often asked: “When are you going to put him in daycare and go back to work?” to which she contends “This is work!” The U.S. lags far behind international standards when it comes to paid maternity leave– being one of only four countries in the developed world that do not require it. That is in contrast to the recommendations of the United Nations’ International Labor Organization (ILO), which have called for a minimum of 14 weeks of paid maternity leave since 1952.

Elise and Emerson live in Pennington, NJ. Elise is a single mom who works full-time, relying on the strong support system and community that Pennington provides. On weekends she and her neighbors take turns watching the kids in groups as they all live within blocks of each other. Not only is this nice for Emerson, it also provides Elise with a few hours a week for herself. Parenthood is not her first experience with caregiving. When her mom became terminally ill, Elise was a primary support, moving home to help shortly after college. According to the U.S. Census, in 2016 23% of children were raised by single mothers, as opposed to 4% by single fathers. Since graduating college, she has worked in a large national bank, starting as a contractor and working her way up to. Recently, a new female boss became her advocate, promoting her further and ensuring she received equitable pay.

Elise with her son Emerson and his friends Lou, Charlie, and Dylan while they play on a trampoline in Patterson, New Jersey. She’s never far away in order to make sure that the kids are safe.

Jetta is in her late 60’s and works full-time for the City of Tacoma in Washington State. Though her three adult children don't need help these days, she is still a regular caregiver to her mother, elders in the community, and her grandchild, Nico. One of the elders she regularly visits is a family friend, Ruth. Jetta is grateful to Ruth who helped her countless times with her own children when they were young. Ruth's relatives live far away, and Jetta worries about Ruth being isolated or neglected. In an increasingly aging populace, unpaid elder care also falls primarily on female family members. According to the 2017 American Time Use Survey of the U.S. Department of labor, about a quarter of women 45 to 64 years old are caring for an older relative.

Jetta throws rocks into the water with her grandson Nico. Each week, Jetta spends a large portion of her free hours with her grandson, both because she enjoys his company and also because she knows it helps his parents. With the high costs of childcare, Nico's parents rely on Jetta’s support to fill in the gaps.