Study Overview
California’s home care system struggles to meet its growing needs, partly due to poor job quality for frontline caregivers. It leans on historically marginalized women of color and immigrants. These dynamics put at risk not only the workers, but also those who need care. Affordability challenges for individuals have led to heavy reliance on state programs for funding. Limited state budgets for care result in low reimbursement rates, shaping market prices. Further, immigration rules and gray markets empower unscrupulous employers to exploit and abuse vulnerable workers. Of existing models, entrepreneurship and worker ownership may particularly attract immigrant care workers and others with barriers to employment because owning a business can offer a way out of exploitative employment conditions.
Study Results
Testing this hypothesis are two home care agencies that are owned and run by immigrants: COURAGE LLC and SplenDoor in Home Care LLC. Key takeaways from the analysis of these two models are: (1) State policies & practices could be modified to support worker-owned business; (2) Cooperative development remains experimental and inadequately supported, relative to more traditional small business development; (3) Financial and voice benefits are mutually important, especially for immigrant owners; (4) At current wage rates for care work, it is unclear whether worker-owned home care businesses are sustainable without external support.
Intervention: Employee ownership models
Research Partner: Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing
Populations: Low-wage workers, immigrant workers
Working Paper: Scott, K. MacKenzie. 2025. Article 3: Case Studies of Immigrant Entrepreneurship and Co-op Development in Home Care
IBSI Funding Acknowledgement: Ownership Initiative
News & media
The Promote Ownership by Workers for Economic Recovery Act (AB 2849) Panel
June 13, 2023
The Promote Ownership by Workers for Economic Recovery Act (AB 2849), codified in Labor Code sections 10000-10010) establishes a panel to study the creation of an Association of Cooperative Labor Contractors, among other potential activities, to facilitate the growth of democratically-run high-road cooperative labor contractors.