The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the lives of the nation’s estimated 62.7 million parents with children under age 18 as access to paid, unpaid, or subsidized child care and school supervision ended for many. The recent end of pandemic relief funds may continue the disruptions for some households, potentially affecting availability of child care for years. This problem is for working parents in all occupations, including academia.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, most parents regardless of their kids’ ages, said they didn’t have any type of child care arrangement, including 35 percent of those with children under age 5 and more than half – 54 percent – with children ages 5 to 11.
When asked in the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey from September to December 2022, respondents replied:
- About 1 in 5 reported child care was provided by a relative other than a parent.
- Around 8.4 percent reported using a daycare center.
- About 5 percent reported using one of the following options: nonrelative care (5.4%); nursery or preschool (5.4%); or before/after school care (5.1%).
- About 3 percent used a family daycare center.
Around 15 percent of parents who had not worked in the last seven days reported they were unemployed in order to provide care to their children who weren’t in school or day care. This trend was particularly pronounced among parents of young children, with more than a third reporting they didn’t work because they needed to care for them.