Capita’s Family Policy Lab is reimagining the future of family policy to foster stability, care, and well-being in a time of profound social, political, economic, environmental, and demographic change.
Over the next three years, we aim to help shape a next-generation policy agenda and develop strategies to create the conditions for children, caregivers, families, and their communities to flourish in the U.S. and around the world.
We believe a collective and cross-partisan effort is essential—one that invites new approaches, focuses on building longer-term strategies that can support family policy for decades to come, forges new alliances, and secures new funding. The Family Policy Lab will do exactly this by building a solidarity and care-driven approach to family policy.
We broadly define family policy as the full spectrum of laws and regulations, and the cultural narratives they shape, each influencing the stability and quality of family life for caregivers and children. Family policy must go beyond support for mere subsistence and survival. It should create the enabling conditions—beginning at pregnancy and birth—for raising healthy, happy, and emotionally resilient children and adults.
Starting our work in the U.S.
We will start our work in the United States, a country that currently has an inadequate family policy—the suite of laws and regulations that directly shape the life of households with minor children—and an inadequate family perspective in other policy areas ranging from labor to housing policy. This broad and deep pain point crosses lines of geography, race, class, and political orientation. Yet, there is no clear path toward fundamental changes in family policy. Short-term thinking is the dominant model and leaves little space for long-term pathfinding. Those we talk to who are closest to the issue are clear: we need fresh ideas and fresh strategies.
At the same time, America is facing tectonic contextual shifts. The country is experiencing ideological realignment both between and within the major political parties, demographic shifts that couple a rapidly graying society with declining marriage and birth rates, and the impacts of climate change. The present moment calls for an updated policy and advocacy framework that can support the novel landscape in which we now find ourselves.
Future-leaning questions
What does the family policy agenda of the next 15 years look like? How can we start preparing now?
In its initial three-year sprint, the Lab will tackle multiple future-leaning questions to furnish the contours and concrete elements of a vision and strategy. These include:
The future of care
What emerging trends will impact caregiving, and what changes in policy and culture are needed to ensure that families are not only supported in meeting care needs but are able to find joy in their caregiving roles?
Sub-questions:
- How can essential policies, like paid parental leave and pluralistic child care, be brought together into an overarching family policy agenda that is responsive to emerging forces – demographic, political, economic, environmental, social – shaping life between now and 2040, and beyond? What might a family policy playbook look like for whoever is inaugurated on January 20th, 2029 and in following cycles?
- How might a forward-looking family policy agenda fit within a broader “culture of care” paradigm, one that transcends programs, and reflects the deeper values and narratives we hold about caregiving, dependency, family, and interdependence in American civic life? How are those values and narratives reflected in the physical and social infrastructure of communities that demonstrate hospitality toward families?
- How will global population and migration trends shape the future of the care workforce?
The future of work
How will the future of work impact families, and how might work be reimagined to align with healthy family life?
Sub-questions:
- How does job quality impact the stability and quality of family life across all of society? What policies are needed to ensure that working conditions promote and do not undermine the health of families? What structural reforms are most urgent?
- How will the disruptions of AI to middle-income work, particularly professions in which women are historically well represented, affect the security and stability of middle-income families? How might these disruptions challenge the dominant political narratives around work, value, and productivity?
- How are parents currently distributed across the labor force, and what risks and opportunities does that distribution suggest when viewed alongside future demographic trends, projected job growth, and shifting caregiving demands?
The future of society
How will changing demographics reshape family life over the next 15+ years, and how will those changes impact the conditions in which family policy and a culture of care develop? What policy or cultural adaptations or mitigations might be needed in response?
Sub-questions:
- How will demographic change, including declining family formation and birth rates, shrinking extended families, aging and longer-lived populations, and increased migration, reshape the contours of family life across generations?
- How will the knock-on effects from these trends impact, either positively or negatively, nations’ fiscal, political, administrative, and societal ability to tackle the challenges of the mid-21st century?
- What will shifting societal contours of the family mean for how humans relate to one another and how those relationships can advance the common good?
The Lab will also address cross-cutting questions, such as:
- What cultural efforts are needed to shift the public’s perception of care?
- What adjustments might be needed to the care advocacy ecosystem?
- What administrative ‘state capacity’ is needed to implement new policies effectively?
The Lab’s work will be a multiplier to the efforts already underway in the family policy arena, helping to improve the terms of the conversation and spurring a new generation of policymaking.
Our ultimate goal is to support the flourishing of millions, strengthen the stability and quality of family life, and help rebuild social infrastructure.
Advisory Board
The Lab will also have an advisory board comprising a diverse array of parents, practitioners, philanthropic partners, advocates, social thinkers, and other relevant experts. The advisory board will meet regularly to get updates and provide guidance on the lab’s direction. They will also be offered the opportunity to offer input on lab products.
Partnership and collaboration
Importantly, Capita cannot—and does not look to—do this work alone. We exist in an ecosystem with numerous policy and advocacy partners on both sides of the political aisle, stakeholder groups representing individuals (namely, parents and practitioners) on the frontlines, and those parents and practitioners themselves. Media outlets, journalists, and writers across various media will also be key allies as we carry forward our work.
Funders of the Lab
Existing funders of Capita’s family policy work (as of February 2025) include:
- Bainum Family Foundation
- Buffett Early Childhood Fund
- Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Foundation
- Richard E. and Nancy P. Marriott Foundation
- Voqal
- W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Work underway
Projects already underway include:
- Understanding and analyzing the fundamentals of child care policy and advocacy through historical research and by examining strategies used in other issue areas such as health care or climate.
- Researching and assessing how stay-at-home parents might be incorporated into family policy.
- Examining and understanding the role of private equity involvement in family policy and the child care sector.
The work will also focus on the federal and state levels, but the majority will take a national lens.
To find out more about the Lab please contact Elliot Haspel at [email protected].
Unifying Family Policy Series
More Family Policy Content
Parents Fear AI, But the Risk to Families Is Not Evenly Distributed
When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) and the future of work, American parents are skeptical of the hype.
Family Policy and Labor Policy are Inseparable—This Data Shows Why
A new analysis shows that family policy is foundational to the people and professions that keep the U.S. healthy, safe, and connected.
Invisible Labor, Visible Needs: Making Family Policy Work for Stay-At-Home (And All) Parents
“I haven’t met a parent yet who doesn’t want the best care possible for their child.”
A conversation with family child care provider Melody A. Robinson
What Comes Next: The New Era in Family Policy
There may be moments when we will need to defend children’s and families’ basic health, safety, and dignity. We will not hesitate to speak out when our voice is required.
Per Capita: Joe Waters in Conversation with Jessica Grose
In this episode, Joe Waters welcomes New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose to discuss families in the polycrisis.
