Still undervalued and underfunded: The invisible child care workforce

This is part of a three-part series in which MDC examines the social and political history of domestic work in America, specifically in Southern states, and factors that have led to the current child care crisis. We consider key roadblocks to meaningful change and highlight how we can continue the legacy of care workers’ resistance by advocating for an equitable system of care.

Child care is critical to families and the U.S. economy

Child care is a critical infrastructure in our country. Beyond providing essential support to parents in the workforce, child care is a key component in a young person’s development and well-being. Studies consistently show that children with access to quality learning environments have higher graduation rates, are more likely to grow up and have full-time employment, and have better mental and physical health outcomes. Child care providers are the backbone of the American workforce and provide the developmental support children need to thrive. And yet, despite everything they provide our communities, they have been chronically undervalued throughout our nation’s history and remain so today. Child care in the U.S. is at a crisis point for two primary reasons: it’s hard to find and often prohibitively expensive for families. Yet childcare providers barely get by on meager wages and are often forced to close their doors.

Current underinvestment in childcare providers

As of 2022, one in every seven child care workers–most of whom are women, and disproportionately women of color–live with family income below the Federal poverty line. This means childcare workers are more than twice as likely to live in poverty as the average American. Child care workers also don’t often receive benefits outside of wages; for example, only 15% of childcare workers receive health insurance from their employer or a union, compared to 58% of all workers. Low pay and a lack of benefits plus the high cost of providing care (see box) mean that many workers are unable to sustain careers in the field or keep a childcare business afloat. It also means that childcare providers often struggle to care for their own families and manage toxic stress. The undervaluing of care work in the U.S. has a long history, intertwined with racial capitalism.

Read the entire article here.

Descargue el informe en español aquí.

Read the other stories in the series:

• “The evolution of child care from a collective good to an inequitable ‘choice’ model” considers how America’s child care system began as a collective good but has evolved to a highly institutionalized and individualized model of care.
• “Racial divisions prevent us from winning child care change” examines how longstanding racial divides have hindered transformational change within the child care sector.

MDC is grateful to the National Domestic Workers Alliance for its History of Domestic Work and Worker Organizing timeline and to the National Women’s Law Center for “Undervalued: A Brief History of Women’s Care Work and Child Care Policy in the United States.” We want to express our gratitude to the participants in our programs, specifically to the Home-Based Child Care (HBCC) Community of Practice members and HBCC Haven providers; their lived experience and work in their communities have greatly informed this analysis.