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Title: COVID-19 Didn't Create a Child Care Crisis, But Hastened and Inflamed It CARSEY PERSPECTIVES Child Care Was Challenging Before the Pandemic
Citation Type: Newspaper Article
Publication Year: 2020
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Abstract: Child care is foundational to the economy. Without it, many parents cannot work or reach their career potential. As child care programs rapidly closed in the COVID-19 pandemic, the degree to which work is enabled by child care became obvious,1 particularly for the 14 percent of workers parenting a child under age 6.2 Analyses of data collected in May and June 2020 found that 13 percent of working parents lost a job or reduced their hours due to a lack of child care.3 Today, the pandemic has made broadly evident what was already clear to America’s parents, employers, and care providers: the nation’s early childhood care system is fragile. Working parents face intersecting challenges as they seek high-quality, affordable care that is suitable for the ages of their children and available when and where they need it. One in four families paying for care spend more than 10 percent of their income on that care,4 well above the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ suggested affordability threshold of 7 percent.5 Half of Americans live in a child care desert,6 where access to formal quality care is essentially absent. And for parents living in a remote place, working nonstandard hours or having multiple young children, options are even more limited. As pandemic-related strains to the child care system unfold atop this shaky foundation, we outline existing and new challenges, and we highlight possibilities for repairing the broken systems caring for our nation’s youngest children.
Url: https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1414&context=carsey
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Authors: Carson, Jess; Mattingly, Marybeth J
Publication Name: Carsey Perspectives
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Publication Date: August 2020
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Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Health, Work, Family, and Time
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