Gen Z Doesn’t Need ‘Severance’—They Need Shared Spaces for Work and Care

With the youngest members of Gen Z still in high school and the eldest among them now outnumbering Boomers in the workforce, the incoming generation is not shy about what they want: better work-life balance and meaningful work with real relationships and positive impact. 

But is that even possible in today’s job market? Work is becoming more “greedy” and exploitative, while child and elder care grow increasingly more expensive and hard to access. Without robust social support, the flexibility that the incoming generation of workers seeks is out of reach. Even though the freelance and gig economy is still on track to become the dominant form of employment by 2027, the growth of remote work has prompted a corporate backlash to re-tether employees to their jobs. This shift collides with deepening gender polarization in the United States, as women, especially mothers, are being squeezed out of the workforce due to return-to-office policies. 

To some young workers, the divide between their personal and professional selves feels irreconcilable. They fantasize about the sci-fi solution offered in AppleTV’s award-winning show Severance: a brain implant that allows you to toggle between office role and home persona. Nearly half of Gen Z surveyed by the workplace mental health platform Unmind said they’d take the deal. But Severance isn’t a utopia; it’s a warning. The show’s characters learn that even a clean, techno-fascist separation of labor and life is made impossible by familial ties and friendships. Indeed, what if, instead of silo-ing work and care away from one another, the real solution is to let them thrive side by side?

One increasingly viable answer is combining coworking space with child care. It’s a simple setup that places workspaces for neighborhood parents in the same building as early child care and education for their kids. This co-location currently happens at around 100 of roughly 40,000 coworking spaces globally. My research indicates that in these settings, child care practitioners report fairer pay and feeling more valued and empowered, families report greater harmony and resilience, and the co-location supports neighborhood and civic engagement. Some even share space with family service providers, like health or educational support—turning them into dynamic neighborhood hubs. 

“What if, instead of silo-ing work and care away from one another, the real solution is to let them thrive side by side?”

To explore their potential, I interviewed 30 entrepreneurs and founders of social enterprises, families, and staff involved in these settings for the Better Life Lab. Alongside these conversations, I also audited over 100 co-located settings around the world and spoke to leading policy experts. What I found is that beyond the binaries of career versus caregiving and in-person versus remote work, parents and child care providers themselves have been busy building a solution that actually works for everyone: “co-locating” work and care under the same roof. 

The COVID-19 pandemic was a turning point that upended traditional approaches to work and parenting. Since then, coworking spaces have increasingly modeled how combining rather than separating these arenas can improve conditions for both. Businesses like Bloom Child Care and Coworking in Montclair, New Jersey, and Playhood in London, which my son and I joined during the pandemic, cater to professionals with established flexible working patterns. Both operate out of the founders’ homes, pairing workspaces with nature-centric, early-years child care and education for a handful of local families. Other models sprung up in the wake of the pandemic, including Yalla Space in San Diego, California; Heinsch House in Atlanta, Georgia; and Le Village in Illinois and Wisconsin. Meanwhile, spaces like The Co-Lab in Tacoma, Washington, the Haven Collection in Rhode Island, JuggleHub in Berlin, and The Workaround in Toronto (now closed) managed to weather social distancing protocols and build mutual aid communities. These spaces can also make aspects of parenting like breastfeeding more seamless, but the benefits go beyond convenience: Founders credit community bonds as critical to these projects. “A culture of support had been normalized by weathering the pandemic together, and not having to hide or downplay parts of yourself or what was going on,” Karen Partridge, founder of Playhood, told me. 

Small, co-located settings also work better for child care employees, typically an undervalued and underpaid workforce largely made up of women of color. In these models, their work is visible, respected, and better compensated. At Blush, a women-focused coworking space with child care in Cary, North Carolina, Larissa Christie provided care while also using the workspace to get her teaching license. “The parents feel like my coworkers,” she said. 

Deep trust was evident at the co-work spaces I visited, marked by less formal or hierarchical dynamics than many traditional childcare settings. At some centers, like Creative Habitat in Des Moines, parents tag in to help maintain appropriate child-to-caregiver ratios. In Baltimore, Maryland, Tammira Lucas launched The Cube to provide local mothers not just a place to conduct business, but a platform to thrive and connect knowing their kids were cared for on-site. It’s grown into much more than office space. “Every day that we serve our community and provide employment opportunities is a testament to our commitment to create spaces that empower and uplift,” Lucas told me. 

From Edinburgh, Scotland, to Athens, Greece, this model is gaining traction, both through for-profit and nonprofit ventures. Despite their positive social impact, many of these spaces rely on crowdfunding and struggle to secure grants and public funds, which would allow them to serve families who otherwise couldn’t afford it. Without greater public and private investment, the benefits of integrating work, child care, community, and wellbeing will be reserved for the privileged, and the progress they represent on work-family justice could be set back years. 

In a moment where many feel alienated by work, abandoned by institutions, and unsupported as parents or caregivers, these spaces offer a glimpse of structural transformation. They show what’s possible when care is not an afterthought but at the foundation of a life that balances work and home. To meet the needs of the emerging workforce, we need to reimagine and invest in physical places where work and care coexist. These gathering spaces can help dismantle gender, relationship, and racial inequities in the workforce and outside world—as well as counter those calls “back to the office.” To achieve harmony between work, family, and care—and create the balance that Gen Z is asking for—we need more spaces where care and connection are valued as much as profit and productivity.

Follow The Thread! Subscribe to The Thread monthly newsletter to get the latest in policy, equity, and culture in your inbox.