Working parents’ child-care struggles are getting worse

More parents are missing work, working part-time or staying out of the labor force altogether for child care reasons than before the pandemic, new research shows, reflecting a steadily worsening situation for the country’s 50 million working parents.

The number of parents citing child care-related work disruptions has risen 19% from pre-pandemic levels, and is 17% higher than at the peak of the COVID-19 crisis, according to an analysis of Census data by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Researchers found that mothers with children under 5 were more than twice as likely as other parents to cite child care challenges as a barrier to work.

“Child care is a growing problem, and mothers with young children are being affected to a much greater degree than other parents,” said Mark O’Dell, a senior research analyst at the Chicago Fed and a co-author of the report. “If we look at the number of potential work hours being lost, the vast majority is coming from parents who are working part time instead of full time, with child care being their main issue.”

A separate report Friday showed that nearly 200,000 people dropped out of the labor force in November, lifting the unemployment rate to 4.2% from 4.1% a month earlier.

Labor economists say the sidelining of working parents could get even worse in the coming months, as more employers require full-time office attendance, and threaten to undo some of the labor market’s recent gains.

Nearly 1 in 3 U.S. workers has a child under 18, making parents a crucial part of the labor force.

The findings underscore the growing challenge of finding and affording reliable child care so parents can work. More than half of the country’s children live in “child care deserts” without enough licensed care, according to the Center for American Progress. And even when child care is available, it’s expensive – between $6,552 and $15,600 a year for one child, surpassing median rent in some parts of the country, according to the Labor Department’s National Database of Childcare Prices.

Victoria McMyne quit her full-time office job in 2021 because day care for two children would have cost $800 a week – $200 more than what she brought home each week. These days she works part-time as an administrative assistant at a local church while her 4- and 7-year-old children are at school.

“Would I like to work full-time? Oh absolutely, if child care wasn’t an issue,” said McMyne, 41, who lives in Endicott, New York. “But grocery prices have grown, everything is more expensive – and then how do we afford child care on top of that? I did the math and it just doesn’t work.”

The initial shock of the pandemic, child care experts say, dealt the most significant blow to the country’s care providers, forcing an estimated 20,000 child-care centers to permanently close and driving tens of thousands of workers out of the industry. Emergency federal funding helped slow the damage, but that money ran out earlier this year, driving up costs for both child care providers and parents, and adding new pressure to an already precarious situation.

“Child care was already a failing industry before the pandemic, but that federal funding was a critical lifeline that allowed providers to stay afloat for a few more years,” said Elizabeth Pufall Jones, a director at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California at Berkeley. “But now that’s gone and we’re in even worse shape.”

The number of child care workers nationwide has barely rebounded to pre-COVID levels, even as employment has grown rapidly in many other areas. More than 360,000 child care workers lost their jobs in the first two months of the pandemic, and many quickly found better-paying jobs in a labor market desperate for employees. Child care centers have struggled to find and keep new employees – a crucial piece in an industry governed by strict teacher-to-child ratios.

“These are highly skilled, physically demanding jobs that pay poverty wages,” Pufall Jones said. “That is really the crux of it.”

In Woodland, Washington, Jennifer Rowland lost her job at a call center in 2017, after she was unable to find someone to watch her special needs child during Saturday shifts.

Since then, the single mother has held a string of odd jobs – as a painter, cashier and online content creator – but says it’s been tough to find work she can do strictly during her child’s school hours. Now 13, they’re too old for day care but too young to stay home alone, she said.

“The lack of child care has completely derailed our lives,” said Rowland, 37. “I’m really limited in what I can do and when I can work. And now I’ve been out of the job market for so long that I don’t know how to re-enter it.”

Workplace flexibility also plays a large role in whether parents are able to stay employed, according to Huanan Xu, an economics professor at Indiana University at South Bend. Many working parents have benefited from pandemic-era shifts to remote and hybrid work that have allowed them to manage gaps in child care. But those gains may be fleeting, she said, as major employers – including Walmart, Amazon and Apple – demand that workers return to the office more frequently. “These policies are further pressuring parents, especially mothers with young children, to reduce their hours or quit their jobs entirely,” Xu said.

Ashley, a tech worker in California whom The Washington Post is identifying only by middle name to talk freely about workplace issues, said the switch to remote work has made it much easier to manage the needs of her three young children, and aging parents and in-laws. But now that her company is requiring employees to return to the office more regularly, she’s wondering whether it’s time to quit.

“With remote work during the pandemic, it really felt like we were on the precipice of such a great opportunity – to allow parents to work in a way that was conducive to raising children,” the 34-year-old said. “But reversing that, going back to the previous system, makes it just about impossible to have a robust family life while working full-time.”