The Case for Childcare: Exploring the business case for care

The United States childcare sector has a broken business model where no one is winning. Parents alone cannot shoulder the high costs of childcare, early childhood educators and childcare workers are deeply underpaid and undervalued, and many geographic regions face a lack of accessible care options. This issue disproportionately affects women, particularly BIPOC women, and frontline working families who often hold down hourly, shift, or gig jobs. If you speak with anyone who has a child 0-5  in America today, you’ll know – we are in a childcare crisis.

Mothers and women have traditionally shouldered the burden of unpaid caregiving responsibilities and are often the first to leave the workforce when family demands arise. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed this disproportionate burden on women when a surge of 2 million women were forced to leave the workforce in 2020, mainly due to a lack of affordable and accessible childcare. This significant exodus of women workers is not just a problem for these women and their families — it is a problem for the business community and the U.S. economy’s overall growth.

Sources: Brookings, SHRM, US Chamber of Commerce

In 2022, NationSwell launched the Case for Childcare Collaborative, dedicated to making the business case for supporting working families, the childcare economy, and early childhood education. For Phase 1, in partnership with American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact, Annie E. Casey Foundation, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Pivotal Ventures, and Working for Women, our Collaborative gathered first-hand insights from cross-sector leaders and looked at secondary research to understand the widespread challenges and opportunities when it comes to making the business case for childcare. This work culminated  in the recent launch of the Case for Childcare microsite that shows employers the benefits and opportunities when their companies champion childcare and support working families. 

In this next phase, our Collaborative is focused on employer childcare benefits that will support frontline, part-time, hourly, and gig workers — those traditionally excluded from benefits reserved for full-time, salaried workers. In partnership with American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, NationSwell is forming an intimate cohort of employers & advocates building childcare solutions to explore how companies can better support frontline working caregivers and families. We look forward to sharing insights in the coming year. 

Ultimately, we believe employers have an important role to play in the child care movement for all workers. We believe that care workers, early childhood educators, families, and working parents everywhere deserve more when it comes to access to family-sustaining wages, paid parental leave, and public support, like universal early childhood education.  Get involved here.