Child Care Disruptions
3 in 10 households with children under 5 continue to experience child care disruptions, forcing them to make difficult choices.
Percent of households where children under 5 were unable to attend child care in last 4 weeks
United States
Source: Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. Note: Universe is population 18+ years in households with children under 5 years of age.
With the reopening of in-person schools nationwide, many were hoping that parents would be able to pivot back to the workforce.1 However, child care disruptions continue to leave families with children under 5 in a lurch. 3 in 10 adults still experienced a child care disruption in the 4 weeks ending September 27, 2021. The impact on both careers and workplaces is not trivial. More than 2.3 million parents cut their work hours to care for children, and 1.6 million parents took unpaid leave to care for children. More than 1 million left a job, half a million lost a job, and nearly 1.2 million didn’t look for a job because of child care disruptions — all of which mean reduced income that can cause a family to skip a rent or mortgage payment, delay seeking needed health care, and struggle to put food on the table. Not surprisingly, this all coincides with a drop in women in the workforce (Employment Rate by Gender).
Comprehensive data on child care closures is hard to come by because the sector is so much more decentralized than K-12 education. What little data exists is concerning. An analysis by southern regional newsroom Reckon found that at least 282 child care centers in GA, 57 in TN, and 136 in AL closed for good during 2020.2 Those losses do not appear to be impacting populations equally. In Jackson, MS, the five zip codes that lost the most child care centers were all majority-Black with high poverty rates. Cassandra Welchlin of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable notes the impact is broader than just employment, “because child care centers are the centers of our communities. When you take them out, you really disrupt the system.”
The common thread behind closures is a mismatch between what families can afford to pay for child care versus what constitutes a competitive, livable wage for qualified workers.3 Before the pandemic, child care professionals in LA, MS, AL, and GA all earned around $9/hour.4 With American Rescue Plan dollars available to shore up the sector, the challenge will be how to leverage these one-time investments into long-term investment in early childhood education.5
“A child-care crisis is keeping women out of the workforce for longer”. Smith, Shah. Los Angeles Times. October, 2021. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-10-10/covid-child-care-crisis-women-in-the-workforce
“A child care crisis worsened in the pandemic. Meet the Southerners working to fix it”. Vollers. Recon South. October, 2021. https://reckonsouth.com/a-child-care-crisis-worsened-in-the-pandemic-meet-the-southerners-working-to-fix-it/
Louisiana daycares in line for an ‘unprecedented’ $773M in COVID aid”. Sentell, Hasselle. The Advocate. March, 2021. https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/education/article_860a9356-8685-11eb-923b-87717a792162.html
“Early Educator Pay - Child Care Workers”. Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. https://cscce.berkeley.edu/workforce-index-2020/interactive-map/
Emmy O’Dwyer, Early Childhood Education Consultant. Personal Communication on July 17, 2021.