Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • 1 in 4 parents report being fired for work interruptions due to child care breakdowns

        Chabeli Carrazana · February 2
      • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

        Orion Rummler · September 20
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?

        Candice Norwood · October 11
      • Los Angeles has never elected a woman mayor. Karen Bass hopes to change that.

        Nadra Nittle · September 8
      • Judge J. Michelle Childs is confirmed to D.C. appeals court

        Candice Norwood · July 20
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: What we know about Brittney Griner’s case and what it took to get her home

        Candice Norwood, Katherine Gilyard · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why the Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t codify same-sex marriage rights

        Kate Sosin · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why baby formula is still hard to find months after the shortage

        Mariel Padilla · December 1
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

        Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Election workers believe in our system — and want everyone else to, too

        Barbara Rodriguez, Jennifer Gerson · November 8
      • Voter ID laws stand between transgender people, women and the ballot box

        Barbara Rodriguez · October 14
      • Emily’s List expands focus on diverse candidates and voting rights ahead of midterm elections

        Errin Haines · August 30

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • 19th Polling
    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Election 2022
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News from reporters who represent you and your communities.

Please check your email to confirm your subscription!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Parents working at home while their child entertains himself.
Seth, right, and Nicole Kroll work on their computers while their son entertains himself at their home. (Photo by Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Business & Economy

About 700,000 parents with young kids left the workforce in 2020. For many, loss of child care was to blame.

Only about half of child care jobs lost at the start of the pandemic have returned, leading to a 144 percent increase in the number of parents who have missed work to care for children, according to new data analysis. 

Chabeli Carrazana

Economy Reporter

Chabeli Carrazana portrait

Published

2021-01-13 14:12
2:12
January 13, 2021
pm

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Coronavirus closed thousands of daycares last year, forcing parents with young children out of the labor force in droves. The scale of that exodus is now clear: about 700,000 parents are out of the workforce. 

New data analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a progressive think tank, found that working parents with children under the age of 5 — especially working mothers — have dropped out of work. Some parents were laid off and gave up trying to find work due to caregiving responsibilities; others left the workforce in order to provide child care. 

The research compiled by Rasheed Malik, a senior policy analyst for early childhood policy at CAP, quantifies how much the loss of child care has affected economic stability in families with children, and among working mothers most of all. It was one of the main contributors to the first recession in the nation’s history disproportionately impacting women, making them the most likely to be laid off due to coronavirus closures and the most likely to leave their work in order to take over child care responsibilities. 

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

According to CAP’s analysis, about two-thirds of those parents who left the labor force were mothers. 

“More often the mother is saying, ‘I should just leave my job and be here managing my household and we’ll figure things out once the pandemic is over.’ And that is a completely reasonable thing to do. [But] it shouldn’t always be falling on mom,” Malik said. “And then we’re going to have a real problem when we have millions of folks, and women especially, trying to reenter the labor force when we might not have the same kind of child care infrastructure that we used to.”

Since last year, the caregiving crisis has become a key economic issue in a recovery that has slowed month to month. December was the first time since the pandemic began that there were fewer net jobs in the workforce from the month before. As a group, women drove all of those losses. 

Women in the 35 to 44 age group, those most likely to have young children, saw their labor force participation rate drop in December, inching closer to where it was at the start of the pandemic. That rate has only dropped three times this year: In May, in September — when many schools reopened virtually — and in December, when coronavirus cases again spiked. 

Another study of parents with school-age children (which could overlap somewhat with parents of young children) found that due to concerns over child care, there were about 1.6 million fewer mothers of children ages 5 to 17 in the labor force in September alone. 

Stories by experienced reporters you can trust and relate to.

Delivered directly to your inbox every weekday.

Please check your email to confirm your subscription!

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Even parents who have continued to work have seen significant child care-related disruptions. 

Between September and November, CAP found a 144 percent increase in the number of care-related work absences as compared to the same period in 2019. 

It’s a problem that has plagued the recovery. The most recent report on economic conditions by the Federal Reserve found child care to be a persistent problem in terms of retaining and hiring workers — particularly women, the report noted — stymying economic growth. A survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in August found that nearly half of manufacturers in that region said child care challenges made it difficult to bring back furloughed workers or hire new ones. The problem had disrupted assembly lines. 

Contributing to the challenges is a child care workforce that is still severely understaffed. The child care sector lost more than 350,000 jobs between March and April, CAP found, and half of those haven’t returned. Since July, the number of child care jobs has largely plateaued due to permanent or temporary closures at centers across the country. 

Almost all those losses have been sustained by women: About 95 percent of the child care industry is made up of women, 40 percent of them women of color. 

In Wisconsin, Kyra Swenson lost her job as an infant and toddler teacher when her center closed on March 13 — Friday the 13th. It later reopened, but without a mask mandate for staff and without changing group sizes. So Swenson, an asthmatic with two children of her own, didn’t return to work. 

“One night my husband finally said, ‘I don’t want to watch you die alone in a hospital,’” Swenson said. Her husband, a data analyst for a health care company, kept his job. 

In the months since, Swenson has started an advocacy group in Wisconsin called WECAN  — or Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed — to raise awareness of the dire state of the industry and how critical child care is for education outcomes, infection mitigation and the economy. 

“There is so much tied up in our industry that we need to be seen as important,” Swenson said. 

Child care runs at thin margins — parents are charged high rates to keep centers operating, but high overhead costs, insurance and staffing requirements leave many centers paying workers around minimum wage. In 2019, the median hourly wage for child care workers was $11.65, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s why an economic shock like the pandemic shuttered centers around the country. 

Those that have remained open have also had to contend with new rules implemented later in the year, including small class size ratios and additional coronavirus mitigation guidelines, as well as parents who, either due to economic reasons or health concerns, have in some cases pulled their children out of daycare.

Sara Mauskopf, the CEO of Winnie, a marketplace that helps connect families with child care providers in their area, said there are some signs that the country may be turning a corner. The incoming Biden administration has proposed a 10-year child care overhaul plan, the vaccine rollout is assuaging some fears about putting kids in a group setting, and the start of the new year has helped boost enrollments. 

“We were in a crisis with child care in this country and we needed something this big to change the course,” Mauskopf said. “[The pandemic] increased recognition for the value of child care with employers, who realized their employees can’t perform without child care; with parents, who realized that child care was also a form of education and development for their children and not just a thing they needed so they could work, but it was also enriching; and with our government. This is the first time that I’ve seen a real national child care plan being articulated.”

We were in a crisis with child care in this country and we needed something this big to change the course.

Sara Mauskopf, CEO of Winnie, a marketplace that connects family with child care providers

A fresh round of stimulus could help the industry regain some of its footing. Congress has allocated $10 billion in funding for child care, including $250 million for Head Start, the federal program that subsidizes early childhood education. Most of that money will go to grants for child care providers who need help paying employees and rent and making modifications to their centers to follow new coronavirus rules. 

Malik, the CAP researcher, called it a “good down-payment,” but child care providers agree that more money is needed to stabilize the industry — and thereby stabilize the economy as a whole.

Lynette Fraga, the CEO of Child Care Aware of America, an industry advocacy group, said $10 billion “is far from what the child care system needs to survive the pandemic.” The group has put the real price tag around $50 billion.

“This will only provide short-term relief,” Fraga said, “on the long road to recovery for child care.” 

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Help sustain what we started

Your monthly investment is critical to our sustainability as a nonprofit newsroom.

Donate Today

Become a member

Up Next

People line up at Jackson Memorial Hospital to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Coronavirus

Trump admin’s push to vaccinate older Americans could make more women eligible

It’s unclear if the changes will meaningfully speed up vaccination, especially if the government doesn't also tackle hurdles such as funding for vaccine outreach and addressing misinformation.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Search
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram