While it is true that men on average spend less time than women on care, dynamics are changing. The Pew Research on Social and Demographic Trends reports that fathers more than doubled their time spent on housework (4 vs 10 hours/week) and child care (2.5 vs 7 hours/week) in the last 50 years. The Holding Co.’s consumer survey found that men self-report responsibility for over 70% of care purchases. Not only are they responsible for a significant portion of purchases, but men will also reportedly spend 55% more than women on the same products and services. This shift is also shown by companies like Cleo reporting that 50% of their users UrbanSitter reporting that 40% of their users are men.

Although the expanded U.S. federal Child Tax Credit was only in effect for six months, the impact of the program was significant. It lifted 5.3 million people, including 2.9 million children out of poverty. It has been well-documented that cash policies are the most effective way of helping families who are struggling. According to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 91% of low-income families used their monthly benefits on their basic needs - food, clothing, shelter, and utilities — or education.¹ While it’s unfortunate that the program was allowed to lapse at a federal level, guaranteed income projects are being created all over the country at a more local level.

AI can help improve household management by providing personalized recommendations, automating solutions, enhancing home security, and developing smart appliances that adapt to the user's needs. Startups like Milo are leveraging generative AI tools like GPT-4 to enable a family to collectively outsource their to-do list onto a platform that keeps everything organized, including calendar invites , menu planning, and reminders.

Robotics are poised to revolutionize domestic labor, easing the burden of household chores. Humanoid robots like Sanctuary AI's Phoenix and Tesla's Optimus are being designed to assess human needs and execute various tasks like meal planning and grocery shopping. In a recent study by University of Oxford and Japan's Ochanomizu University researchers, experts predict that robots will be able to do 39% of domestic chores by 2033.¹ However, skepticism about such transformations persists due to the complexities of creating versatile robots.

The inability for smart home devices to communicate with one another has been a major barrier to widespread adoption. Large manufacturers have recognized this reality and are actively adopting strategies to meet the consumer desire for interoperability. This is most evident with the recent launch ofMatter, an interoperability standard developed and run by the Connectivity Standards Alliance. Major players like Apple, Google, Amazon and Samsung are working with Matter to create a standard that allows smart devices from different manufacturers to work together. As they move beyond basic devices like light switches, thermostats and televisions and into smart security cameras, home security systems and more, interoperability will become even more crucial.

While women have historically had the majority of caregiving responsibilities, a recent study by Mother Honestly and Care.com found that 47% of men with a child under 15 felt they could spend more time with their kids due to remote work.¹ The survey also found that 73% of caregivers use the time they save from working from home to care for their children, and 70% use it to spend more time with their partner or spouse. While remote work isn’t a magic bullet for care parity, it does allow caregivers the flexibility to stay in the labor force. The recent push to bring workers back to the office could ultimately upend this flexibility and employers should be cognizant of the knock-on effect of these policy changes.

Scaling a business that’s addressing home management challenges has so far been a difficult task for any company. Many meal delivery companies, for example, have soared while propped up by venture capital and quickly fallen when the time comes to make it on their own. Household maintenance companies have also struggled to find sustainable business models, as with AAA shutting down their House Manager service in California earlier this year. The examples of solutions that are working, such as Rinse and Yumi, are specifically urban and often inaccessible due to a wide consumer basis because of high cost. As long as humans remain heavily involved in home management tasks, like delivering dry cleaning and cooking meals, the profit margins on these businesses will remain limited. Instead, the opportunity lies in using technology to make local businesses more efficient and effective in meeting their community’s needs, like what DoorDash continues to do with their new Packages service for picking up packages and delivering them to USPS, UPS, or FedEx.

Persistently high inflation over the last 2+ years has led households to feel squeezed by increased prices and cautious about spending. The Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey from December 2022 showed that 47% of respondents felt very stressed by inflation, and that at the margins, an extra child raises that stress by 4.2% points. IResearch with U.S. caregivers completed by The Holding Co. and McKinsey & Co. in June, 2023 found that 32% of survey respondents reported slightly higher or significantly higher spending on caregiving related expenses between June 2022 and 2023. Given these additional expenses for care, finding wallet share for purchasing household management products and services, will be exceedingly difficult for companies in this space. Additionally, an Executive from Honor reported that it’s common for families to stop spending money on in-home aids and other care services during times of hardship.