Thank you for that great question.
It has been a really important period of time for social research. We have this unexpected opportunity to deeply understand the dynamics and the interplay with families and community. A big part of that is the role that caregivers play.
When we talk about care, we talk about two distinctive groups. Often both groups represent women largely, the caregivers and what is often referred to as the informal care providers. We don't like the idea of “informal”. There's nothing informal about it. They're giving care and they give it without any recognition, without any support and without any acknowledgement in a lot of cases. They give care. Care providers provide care. They're paid. They're structured. They might be volunteers, but they are associated with some type of entity.
During COVID, going back to March, we started working with some partners to poll families week over week. Since then, we have been exploring all aspects of COVID and the impacts it has on family.
One of the most significant ones is the challenge that families face in either being locked in or locked out during lockdown with respect to senior care. I might be locked in and not have access to supplementary care. Over the summer, I was providing palliative care. I was locked in providing senior services. The care sector was locked out. They couldn't come in. The palliative care nurses stopped coming. The personal support workers stopped coming. They weren't available to me. My colleague was locked out of the long-term care facility that her mother was in. She used to go regularly. She used to attend. She used to provide supplementary supports.
The research shows that both those experiences are real and have a huge impact on our ability to participate in the paid labour force, but also in the quality of the experience that seniors have. Whether you're locked in or locked out, there are excruciating decisions that need to be made. There are circles of support that need to be in place in order for that to happen. We've seen women having to leave paid employment for periods of time, if not permanently, in order to fulfill their care responsibilities. Therefore, it is a really important thing that we need to continue to monitor as we go forward.