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The modern family is unraveling under pressures our parents never imagined. In this eye-opening episode, Heliox dives into the "Families Count 2024" report, exposing the uncomfortable truth about how Canadian families are buckling under dual burdens of workplace demands and unpaid care labor. We unpack the radical shift from 1970s gender roles—where fewer than half of women participated in paid work—to today's reality, where over 61% of women are employed and 32% of heterosexual couples rely primarily on female breadwinners.
The conversation doesn't just identify problems—it names the systemic failures fueling this crisis: inadequate childcare that costs families a fortune, inflexible workplaces punishing caregivers, and the near-invisible "sandwich generation" caring for both children and aging parents simultaneously. Most importantly, we expose how these burdens fall disproportionately on women, who are four times more likely than men to sacrifice career advancement for family care responsibilities.
Beyond statistics, this episode challenges listeners to reconsider what "family work" truly encompasses and why our policies and cultural attitudes remain stuck in the past century. If you're part of a Canadian family feeling the squeeze, you're not failing—the system is failing you.
Vanier Institute: Families Count 2024: How paid and unpaid work are distributed in families
This is Heliox: Where Evidence Meets Empathy
Independent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, clinical, global, and community conversations about things that matter. Breathe Easy, we go deep and lightly surface the big ideas.
Thanks for listening today!
Four recurring narratives underlie every episode: boundary dissolution, adaptive complexity, embodied knowledge, and quantum-like uncertainty. These aren’t just philosophical musings but frameworks for understanding our modern world.Â
We hope you continue exploring our other podcasts, responding to the content, and checking out our related articles on the Heliox Podcast on Substack.Â
Support the show
About SCZoomers:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1632045180447285
https://x.com/SCZoomers
https://mstdn.ca/@SCZoomers
https://bsky.app/profile/safety.bsky.app
Spoken word, short and sweet, with rhythm and a catchy beat.
http://tinyurl.com/stonefolksongs
Curated, independent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, evidenced-based, clinical & community information regarding COVID-19. Since 2017, it has focused on Covid since Feb 2020, with Multiple Stores per day, hence a large searchable base of stories to date. More than 4000 stories on COVID-19 alone. Hundreds of stories on Climate Change.
Zoomers of the Sunshine Coast is a news organization with the advantages of deeply rooted connections within our local community, combined with a provincial, national and global following and exposure. In written form, audio, and video, we provide evidence-based and referenced stories interspersed with curated commentary, satire and humour. We reference where our stories come from and who wrote, published, and even inspired them. Using a social media platform means we have a much higher degree of interaction with our readers than conventional media and provides a significant amplification effect, positively. We expect the same courtesy of other media referencing our stories.
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By by SC ZoomersSend us a text
See related resources in the substack for this episode
The modern family is unraveling under pressures our parents never imagined. In this eye-opening episode, Heliox dives into the "Families Count 2024" report, exposing the uncomfortable truth about how Canadian families are buckling under dual burdens of workplace demands and unpaid care labor. We unpack the radical shift from 1970s gender roles—where fewer than half of women participated in paid work—to today's reality, where over 61% of women are employed and 32% of heterosexual couples rely primarily on female breadwinners.
The conversation doesn't just identify problems—it names the systemic failures fueling this crisis: inadequate childcare that costs families a fortune, inflexible workplaces punishing caregivers, and the near-invisible "sandwich generation" caring for both children and aging parents simultaneously. Most importantly, we expose how these burdens fall disproportionately on women, who are four times more likely than men to sacrifice career advancement for family care responsibilities.
Beyond statistics, this episode challenges listeners to reconsider what "family work" truly encompasses and why our policies and cultural attitudes remain stuck in the past century. If you're part of a Canadian family feeling the squeeze, you're not failing—the system is failing you.
Vanier Institute: Families Count 2024: How paid and unpaid work are distributed in families
This is Heliox: Where Evidence Meets Empathy
Independent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, clinical, global, and community conversations about things that matter. Breathe Easy, we go deep and lightly surface the big ideas.
Thanks for listening today!
Four recurring narratives underlie every episode: boundary dissolution, adaptive complexity, embodied knowledge, and quantum-like uncertainty. These aren’t just philosophical musings but frameworks for understanding our modern world.Â
We hope you continue exploring our other podcasts, responding to the content, and checking out our related articles on the Heliox Podcast on Substack.Â
Support the show
About SCZoomers:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1632045180447285
https://x.com/SCZoomers
https://mstdn.ca/@SCZoomers
https://bsky.app/profile/safety.bsky.app
Spoken word, short and sweet, with rhythm and a catchy beat.
http://tinyurl.com/stonefolksongs
Curated, independent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, evidenced-based, clinical & community information regarding COVID-19. Since 2017, it has focused on Covid since Feb 2020, with Multiple Stores per day, hence a large searchable base of stories to date. More than 4000 stories on COVID-19 alone. Hundreds of stories on Climate Change.
Zoomers of the Sunshine Coast is a news organization with the advantages of deeply rooted connections within our local community, combined with a provincial, national and global following and exposure. In written form, audio, and video, we provide evidence-based and referenced stories interspersed with curated commentary, satire and humour. We reference where our stories come from and who wrote, published, and even inspired them. Using a social media platform means we have a much higher degree of interaction with our readers than conventional media and provides a significant amplification effect, positively. We expect the same courtesy of other media referencing our stories.