The Lifetime Impact of Child Care & Caregiving Challenges on Women in San Mateo County

2023 Update

Child Care Timeline

Preview

• What we knew
• Summary of local + state/national data points & information
• What we learned
• Snapshot of new information from CSW Child Care Impact Survey
• Collection of stories from women in San Mateo County
• What we believe
• Child Care is a Human Right
• What we can do
• Recommendations for local action
• Suggested policy positions (county, state and federal)
• Opportunities for collaborations with other key stakeholders (like local business leaders)

What we knew….

“If the United States treated other elements of infrastructure that are critical to the economy the way it does child care, you could imagine the chaos: Car owners would be left building bridges out of duct tape and scrap iron to get to the office, begging close relatives to come by each morning to hold a traffic light up at the corner.”

Emily Peck, in the New York Times

What We Knew - National Data & Research

The Impact of Child Care Challenges on Families

• Work Hours/Productivity & Labor Force Participation
• 85% of caregivers reduce work hours or productivity though parenthood boosts men’s overall participation in the workforce but depresses women’s
• Women
• Double-whammy: extra caregiving responsibilities at home + pay penalties at work (average $17K/year up to $38K for Latina moms)
• Expanding child care access = increase employment for moms by 17% (31% for those without a college degree)
• Lifetime financial benefits = $94,000 →increase of $20K savings + additional $10K Social Security benefits.
• Housing
• High child care costs make it hard for families to afford rent let alone save money for purchasing a home
• Parents with affordable child care can work to keep a roof over their heads
• For every $1 invested in child care, local property values increase by about $13 per year.

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What We Knew - National Data & Research

Educators

Worthy Work

• Foundation for social-emotional, cognitive and physical growth for lifelong learning and well-being.

Equity Opportunity

• Empower women and people of color, who make up the majority of the early learning workforce.
• Early educators experience poverty at 8 times the rate as K-8 teachers (and make less than half of a kindergarten teacher’s salary); 58% of early educators rely on public income support.

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Economic Cost & Opportunity

$122B = Annual cost of challenges (double since 2018)

• Businesses: $23 billion or $1,640/working parent due to insufficient child care (lost revenue + hiring costs)
• Governments: $21 billion or $1,470/working parent with insufficient child care (lost income and sales tax revenues)

Opportunity - Economic multiplier effect

• Every dollar spent on child care results in two dollars of short-term economic output, a higher multiplier than most industries.

What We Knew - National Data & Research

Early Childhood = Optimal Time for Investment

85% of brain growth occurring by the age of five

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Lifelong Benefits of High Quality Early Learning

Every $1 invested saves the county $17

What We Knew - San Mateo County

2022 Child Care Partnership Council for San Mateo County Needs Assessment

What We Knew - San Mateo County

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Impact on Parents

• 73% of survey respondents have turned down work due to lack of child care.
• Affordability = highest consideration for families
• Child care costs average 25% or more of household income, sometimes as much or more than housing.

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Impact on our local economy

• Economic benefit to SMC for funding Living Wage Gap = $389 million (annual)
• Annual cost to raise wages to a Living Wage = $207 million

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Impact on educators

• Low wages drive turnover/shortage rates
• Educators would need an increase of 65-127% with adjustments for education and experience to earn a liveable wage.
• The youngest educators (18-39 year olds) is the most likely to leave.

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2022 SMC Child Care Needs Assessment

What We Knew - San Mateo County

Highlights from 2023 Sustainable San Mateo County Report

What We Knew - San Mateo County

Recommendations from the 2023 Sustainable San Mateo County Report

What we learned….

What we learned

Online survey

• Offered in English, Spanish & Chinese
• 389 responses gathered September - October, 2023

Interviews & Feedback Forms

• Conducted online and in person with community members and local partners October - December 2023

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Preliminary Data Highlights - WHO

Data for CSW Child Care Impact online survey participants + 2020 Census Data comparisons

Preliminary Data Highlights - WHO

Preliminary Data Highlights - WHO (UNDER $100K)

Profiles

for lower income families

Preliminary Data Highlights

WHO and WHERE survey respondents reside

San Mateo: 37

South San Francisco: 37

San Carlos: 11

San Bruno: 4

Redwood City: 46

Pescadero: 2

Pacifica: 13

Moss Beach: 15

Montara: 14

Atherton: 1

Menlo Park: 27

La Honda: 7

Half Moon Bay: 86

Daly City: 33

Burlingame: 8

Belmont: 16

East Palo Alto: 12

Woodside: 8

Foster City: 5

Preliminary Data Highlights - WHAT

What are the impacts of child child care challenges?

Preliminary Data Highlights - WHAT

What are the consequences of these impacts on the lives women and their families?

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15%

Housing

instability

Preliminary Data Highlights - HOW

60% of respondents said it would be VERY impactful to have child care benefits or onsite care

and

76% said they would be more likely to apply for a job if an employer provided onsite care.

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Preliminary Data Highlights - Top Financial Benefits

Household with incomes under $100K ranked basic needs, transportation & housing highest

Preliminary Data Highlights - Top Non-Financial Benefits

Most women believe policies like universal child care or paid leave would significantly improve their short and long-term well-being.

In Depth

Feedback

Individual Stories +

Local Partner &

Key Stakeholder Inputs

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Word cloud created with survey responses

Local Child Care Partners in San Mateo County

Individual Stories (Written Testimonials from Women in San Mateo County)

Individual Stories (Written Testimonials from Women in San Mateo County)

What we believe….

Child Care is a Human Right

A cornerstone for health and wellbeing for children and caregivers (especially women)

The Rights of Women

• Human Rights & Unpaid Work
• The unequal distribution of unpaid care work between women and men represents an infringement of women’s rights according to the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights: Unpaid Care, Work and Women's Human Rights. Available at SSRN 2437791. (UN, 2013)
• International Law (American Declaration, ICCPR, ICERD)
• International law binds the United States to adopting comprehensive policy providing accessible and affordable child care as a right of women.
• Women disproportionately assume the responsibility of unpaid and undervalued child care and therefore are impeded from full participation in public life. These discriminatory effects compound for minority women. Despite its wealth, the United States is outside the mainstream of international morality and out of bounds of its obligations under various international agreements.
• Civil Rights in the United States
• NOW and other feminist groups state that without childcare, women are effectively barred from full participation in employment, education, and politics. They advocate for childcare as a fully public resource comparable to public schools, available to all, regardless of income level.

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The Rights of Children

• International Human Rights Law
• The rights of all children under 18 are established in Article 24 of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which is the most widely ratified international human rights instrument and consolidates all previous treaties on the rights of children. These rights include access to education and care.
• Civil Rights Opportunity
• The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights released principles to guide its advocacy around early care and education. Many children from low-income families do not have access to high quality care. And, care providers are predominantly low-income BIPOC women. Head Start was created out of the civil rights movement but cannot meet the needs of all families. Building a more affordable, accessible, high-quality system of early learning. That effort is inexorably bound to making advancements toward, at minimum, racial justice, gender equity and disability rights.

Child Care is also….

• A key piece of infrastructure for livable, sustainable communities for working families;
• A means to prepare children for future school success;
• An economic contributor directly and indirectly by generating employment and tax revenue

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2022 Child Care Needs Assessment

What we can do….

Preliminary Recommendations

Leadership - Chief Children’s Officer

Build an early learning infrastructure

• ACCESS: Increase affordable access + connect working families to current local resources
• WORKFORCE: Expand professional development for early educators (majority BIPOC women)
• ACCESS: Explore expansions like universal child care opportunities

Advocate for funding

• Santa Clara Chief Children’s Officer secured $15M in first year.

Advocacy & Education

• LEAVE: Support for policies (state/federal) including 6 month paid family leave + outreach/education for using leave
• EMPLOYERS: Engagement with the business community on policies that allow employees to better leverage current benefits and expand supports working families (more flexibility, onsite care).
• COALITIONS: Multi-sector coalition building with groups like housing
• ACCESS: Eliminate discriminatory and bureaucratic red tape to expand equitable access to subsidized care.

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Money - Dedicated Public Funding

Set-aside resources

• Subsidies to cover the true cost of care (wages)
• Child care for early educators (similar to Kentucky)
• Support for mixed delivery system

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Quotes

How would your life be different now if you had access to high quality and affordable child care or caregiving supports?

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Quotes - How would your life be different?

• "It makes me sad to think what life could have been like. It was a struggle, and we could not ever think of a second child..."
• "I would be able to pay off my student loans, I would have much more savings. I lost a lot of our savings paying for childcare during Covid shutdowns. I don’t think we will ever be able to buy a home in this area given prices and our lack of savings."
• "I would be in a higher paying job working closer to my true abilities because I would not have had to take a demotion/cut in pay when my job was moved to a different site ... causing me serious financial distress and also caregiver problems because no one was open early/late enough to take care of my child ... my son could have his friends over and not be embarrassed his mom's bedroom was also the living room since he has the one bedroom in the apt we can afford. I would have some savings built up so I didn't have to decide if I was going to buy food or go to the laundromat and do laundry because I would be in a much higher income bracket."
• "Might still be married."

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Quotes

What can businesses do differently or better to support parents/caregivers?

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Quotes - What can businesses do?

• "Normalize families. Normalize children. Have bosses who actually respect families. Many do not have children or families or think we should all behave like 1950s men (even the women who are in charge think this)."
• "Be understanding and flexible if the kids are sick, there’s nothing we can do and nobody wants to take them"
• "Listen to our needs and issues. Almost everyone I know has two jobs, so these questions should have also included a section devoted to managing several jobs while caring for others. It’s not a sustainable practice and employers aren’t getting the message. They have built in the expense to replace you versus work with you and be inclusive."
• "Walk the talk of "work-life balance" - meaning, don't overload employees, be flexible about working hours. Focus on outcomes and not hours worked. Have childcare on site/help pay for it."
• "Consider childcare as a basic pillar of support for employee benefit packages. Engage in solutions with employees, find out more about how and what other businesses are doing. Take action to engage employees in the process. Then choose a path and do it."

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Quotes

If you could make recommendations to local leaders on policies that support working parents and caregivers, what would you say?

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Quotes - What can local leaders do?

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• "Encourage remote work/work from home and flexible schedules for companies operating in SMC. This has made a world of difference for us and our ability to afford childcare!"
• "Require flexible work schedules so that women don't have to leave the workforce, particularly in education. It [is] extremely challenging for educators to keep working during the years they have young children. It also makes it more likely that they will pivot out of education and into another field (as I am working on now)."
• "Consider policies that increase the amount of sick time available to take care of young kids who are sick. It's VERY stressful and exhausting. Policies for universal childcare and/or subsidized childcare and making it easier to start daycares is also critical. Also requiring employers to continue to pay for healthcare benefits while employees are out on paid family leave for baby bonding and/or disability. Even if employers provide on site childcare (like mine - the County), there was a very long waiting list. I couldn't get in. I've been working here 3 years - still haven't gotten a call back with a spot available to enroll."
• "I have witnessed the lack of pay for child care providers over the last 35 years being in the child development field and a parent of three. If religion is important enough to be tax free for our communities, imagine the impact of being income tax free for child care providers. We need our excellent providers to remain in the field to help care for our children. Parents who need to work, need child care to do so. Help parents afford care and help providers stay in the field. NO INCOME TAXES FOR CHILD CARE PROVIDERS!"
• "Create more opportunities at schools. Daycare programs, TK, after school and summer programs. Schools need more staff so these programs can take more kids. These programs currently have waitlists over a year long and the summer program is full within an hour of being available and costs $1500 per kid for the summer. I talk to parents almost everyday about the childcare struggle."
• "Good, safe, healthy universal childcare options during working hours MUST be available and affordable to people of all incomes so that we don't have to sacrifice our children for our jobs or our jobs for our children. Women will always have to bear the brunt of childcare, and we need to put every protection in place to make sure that they have even a chance of being as productive and empowered as men are."
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Quotes - What can local leaders do?

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• "Create more opportunities at schools. Daycare programs, TK, after school and summer programs. Schools need more staff so these programs can take more kids. These programs currently have waitlists over a year long and the summer program is full within an hour of being available and costs $1500 per kid for the summer. I talk to parents almost everyday about the childcare struggle."
• "Good, safe, healthy universal childcare options during working hours MUST be available and affordable to people of all incomes so that we don't have to sacrifice our children for our jobs or our jobs for our children. Women will always have to bear the brunt of childcare, and we need to put every protection in place to make sure that they have even a chance of being as productive and empowered as men are."

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Quotes - What can local leaders do?

• "Child Care providers should NOT be required to pay state and federal income tax. They are in the lowest income bracket in our nation, yet provide the most needed and valued service to families. The state and private child care programs cannot afford to pay child care providers a livable wage. To do so, parents/state would have to pay more for services. I have witnessed the lack of pay for child care providers over the last 35 years being in the child development field and a parent of three. If religion is important enough to be tax free for our communities, imagine the impact of being income tax free for child care providers. We need our excellent providers to remain in the field to help care for our children. Parents who need to work, need child care to do so. Help parents afford care and help providers stay in the field. NO INCOME TAXES FOR CHILD CARE PROVIDERS!"
• "Tell software companies that women have children AND brains."
• "Universal paid childcare for all. Pay early childhood educators as much as tech workers. Educators in all fields should be making more than tech workers. Instead of paying tech workers so much, pay teachers. Our children are the future - they deserve the best care. Paying teachers well means they can take care of themselves & their families & incentives to do a good job teaching/caring for children."
• "Stop pretending that the welfare of children doesn't matter to society. Everyone was a child once, and virtually all mothers work, so it's incomprehensible that people act like providing adequate child care is an onerous burden on society. What's an onerous burden on society is a generation of children who grow up in poverty with exhausted and overextended mothers who live miserable lives trying to adequately provide for their children."

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Quotes

Anything else you’d like to share?

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Quotes - Anything else you’d like to share?

• "I sleep 4 hours a night because only way can manage work and child care and cost of child care and housing in bay area"
• "I am exhausted"
• "I always feel that I am failing as an employee and mother. It’s very depressing."

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Thanks!