https://www.fcd-us.org/blog-upgrade-the-jobs-not-the-workers-for-sustainable-child-care/
“It takes a village.” We’ve all heard it, we’ve all said it, and it’s true. But the irony is that we often say it to ease the tension we feel when explaining why we couldn’t do it all ourselves: “Grandma picked the kids up from daycare today because my meeting ran late … it takes a village!” “A nanny is coming to the house because I have to go back to work after six weeks … it takes a village!”
We know that care is a shared responsibility, but we still sometimes feel like we’ve failed an individual responsibility when we need to call on our village. That’s because, given how little support there is for families who need care, we figure we must be expected to manage it on our own. And so we find ourselves making impossible decisions because we need our job to pay for the child care that we wouldn’t need if we weren’t working — work that most of us can’t afford not to do.
When I was a child, our village was international and intergenerational. It included paid and unpaid care from family, neighbors, and care professionals. Before I was old enough to go to preschool, and in the summers between grade school years, I stayed with my grandparents in Taiwan or they came to live with us to help care for me and my younger sister. My parents also shared care with other immigrant students who had children. They took advantage of every extended care program they could afford. They took out student loans that went exclusively to pay for child care.
My mom would tell you she would have thought that by the time I was old enough to have a family, navigating and affording child care would be easier.
But it’s not.
About 70% of children are growing up in households where all working-age adults work outside of the home, mostly out of necessity. In 2022, child care was affordable for less than half of families — those earning more than $75,000 per year—yet the United States spends less on child care and early childhood education than most other wealthy nations. And given that child care workers earn an average of $13 an hour, the irony of child care workers being unable to afford care for their own families contributes to the “classic market failure” of child care in the United States.
For years, experts and advocates have focused on the workers, arguing that certifications were the solution: that the perceived “quality” would “upgrade” workers, which would entice more people to do care work, thus filling the gap in the number of care workers needed. Yet here we are, amidst an unprecedented workforce crisis. It’s time we shift our focus.
What if we upgraded the jobs instead?
We should invest holistically in a child care system that is affordable and sustainable for parents and care workers alike. One where care workers earn a living wage that enables them to support their own families even as they support others’. One where care work is understood to be a respected and skilled profession in our economy and our society — rather than devalued as “women’s work” or “help” — with the worker rights and protections that skilled workers deserve.
At the National Domestic Workers Alliance, we are part of many efforts to fulfill this vision, including Care Can’t Wait, a coalition of organizations and labor groups dedicated to elevating care as a necessary policy solution to transform care jobs into good jobs and to build a strong care infrastructure in America.
No social issue is a single issue, and we see the power in building coalitions to address the two key economic barriers to our kids getting the care they deserve: affordability of care and strength of the care workforce. Together with labor groups and care-forward groups, we are fighting for worker legislation, like the passing of a federal Domestic Workers Bill of Rights; government funding, such as an expansion of the Child Tax Credit; and support for families in the form of long-term investments in the care infrastructure.
It does take a village, and care professionals are a critical part of the village that raises our children with us, allowing parents to work outside the home and providing children with the care they need every day. We shouldn’t feel tension when we turn to our village for support, whether it’s a neighbor or a nanny, because children have always been raised by communities. But parents, care workers, and children across our country will continue to struggle — unless we make care jobs good jobs.
This is the fifth blog in the Foundation’s Social Justice for Young Children Conversation Series exploring what it means to pursue social justice for young children and their families.
About the Author
Ai-jen Poo is a next-generation labor leader, award-winning organizer, author, and a leading voice in the women’s movement. She is the president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, executive director of Caring Across Generations and a trustee of the Ford Foundation. Poo is a nationally recognized expert on the care economy and is the author of the celebrated book The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America.
Follow her at @aijenpoo.