What We Lose When We Lose Women at Work

Pushing women into the private sphere is bad for all of us.

Photo by Carlos Magno on Unsplash

As more and more American states force pregnant women into motherhood, a stunning number of mothers remain out of work, under-employed, or trying to cobble together self-employment income, because it’s so difficult to find affordable, high-quality childcare.

Force women into parenthood and then make it nearly impossible for many of them to support their children: It would be darkly ironic if it weren’t so tragic.

A caregiver shortage in the United States means that a great many American mothers are unable to fully take part in a generous economy where jobs are plentiful and pay is ticking up. Mothers are instead either not working at all, or not working in stable jobs with much potential for growth. And it’s single moms without college degrees — who are among the most likely people in America to be low-income — who have been the slowest to return to work after so many mothers left the workforce during the pandemic. According to the New York Times:

This failure of women to return to the workforce is only compounding itself: Women make up the vast majority of child and elder care workers, and some 500,000 workers in those two industries left during the pandemic and did not return — leaving other working mothers, in turn, without adequate care for children and aging loved ones. And when women don’t have care for the people in their lives who need care, it’s women — mothers, daughters — who step in and do the work for free.

The individual logic of it makes sense: Why pay for childcare if it’s almost as much as I make? Or, for many women right now, how do I find childcare when there simply is none near by? There may not even be a calculation of care costs vs. income — care may simply be impossible to find, leaving mothers with no choice but to provide the care themselves.

But this has real costs.