Child Care is Infrastructure

Mother and daughter

Paid care work is a crucial foundation for the economy because it allows working parents and other caregivers to become and remain employed. This new issue brief estimates the economic activity made possible through the labor of the paid child care workforce. It finds that nearly 14 million parents relied on paid caregivers while they worked, with the child care workforce supporting more than $804 billion in family earnings. 

Lifetime Employment-Related Costs to Women of Providing Family Care

This report from the Urban Institute, commissioned by the Women’s Bureau, examines how the amount of time spent providing care to children and adults impacts women’s economic well-being, even long after the caregiving ends. Researchers found that the estimated employment-related costs for mothers providing unpaid care average $295,000 over a lifetime, based on the 2021 U.S. dollar value, adjusted for inflation. Unpaid family caregiving reduces a mother’s lifetime earnings by 15 percent, which also creates a reduction in retirement income.

Pregnant Women

Other Resources

U.S. Department of Labor Guidance on Supportive Services for Child Care and Long-Term Care This guidance is intended to assist Federal agencies, Federal funding recipients, employers, workforce development entities, and other stakeholders in the care community to make thoughtful investments into child care and long-term care to support workers.

Data & Information