Mothers cannot work without child care, so why aren't more companies helping?

Most of us are lousy multitaskers. When we try to do two things simultaneously, studies show, we fall short on one or the other, or both. This is especially true for working parents who must multitask daily to make sure their kids and their careers are thriving. 

And when the stress becomes too much, for both parents but especially the mothers, it’s often the job that gets sacrificed.

For too long, child care has been a fend-for-yourself issue, leaving parents to jigsaw resources alone. Yet this crisis affects all of us. Nearly 10 million jobs are open today. There are qualified women who could fill plenty of them. But mothers cannot work without child care, and that’s something frustratingly unavailable for many families.

In a new Harris Poll, three-quarters of working mothers who require child care say that the responsibility overwhelms them and that finding trustworthy providers is hard. Among working fathers who require child care, half agree they’re overwhelmed, though they largely acknowledge that they play a supporting role in raising children.

Beyond the hassle, there’s the expense. The median cost of away-from-home infant care tops $10,000 a year in much of the country and $25,000 in many major metros. For half of parents who need child care, that’s more than they can afford, according to the poll.

America puts working parents in lose-lose situation

We as a nation have put working parents in this lose-lose situation by choice. Per capita, the United States spends less than any other advanced economy on pre-elementary-school care – about $500 per toddler annually. While more than a dozen states have enacted family and medical leave laws, the United States is also the outlier among industrialized nations in lacking this right.

Congress is not going to bring America into the fold in this presidential election year. Even in less polarized times – back in the 2000s – universal child care bills were introduced nearly every year, only to die each and every time.

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But there’s another way to enable more parents to obtain reliable and affordable child care: The private sector can take the lead.

Today, an estimated 12% of American workers are eligible for child care benefits from their employers. They include major companies like Microsoft, Expedia, PwC and Raytheon, which provide such things as on-site care facilities, child care subsidies, dependent care flexible spending accounts, modified work schedules or backup care.

How to help parents win in work-life experiences

Recently, Boston Consulting Group and Moms First studied five other employers across industries that offer child care benefits – Uniqlo, Synchrony Financial, UPS, Etsy and Steamboat Ski Resort – and surveyed 1,000 of their employees about their work-life experiences.

Suleyka Basil was one of them. A Uniqlo store manager in New York, Basil thought she’d have to quit when she was pregnant with twins because she didn’t think she could afford infant care. But she stayed on because the Fast Retailing brand gives management-track employees a monthly $1,000 stipend for child care for up to three years.

Gleydis Gonzalez was another. With her third child on the way, child care became unsustainable: Her company offered no child care benefits or parental leave. Gonzalez left to take a position as a senior recovery specialist at Synchrony, based in Stamford, Connecticut. Its benefits include reimbursements for 60 days of backup care annually.

These aren’t just feel-good stories. The companies in this study tallied an average 290% return on their child care outlays.

The benefits resonate with respondents in the Harris Poll. Almost two-thirds of parents who need child care say they’d be more likely to accept a job offer from an employer offering a monthly child care stipend or on-site day care for a fee. Make that on-site benefit free and the majority rises to three-quarters. Seven in 10 also would be more attracted to companies with flexible scheduling or paid time off specifically for child care responsibilities.

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Working parents would be better off, of course, if every employer copied these forward-looking companies. Half of Americans live in child care deserts, census tracts where there are at least three kids under 5 years old for every child care slot, if there are any facilities at all. Elsewhere, parents are burning through their savings or borrowing to pay for care.

But while moms and dads wait for Congress to pass affordable and accessible child care, let’s encourage more employers take this responsibility on themselves – for the good of their workers and their own bottom lines. Rather than being forced to choose between a job and child care, young families need to hear an encouraging word from the boss: “Stay. You can have both.”

Will Johnson is CEO of The Harris Poll, a global public opinion, market research and strategy firm.