Kids Are Work: Six Ways Child Care Creates Good Jobs

Child care is a legitimate community economic development (CED) strategy for low-income women. Yet funders, economic development practitioners, local officials, and even women's advocacy organizations often deny requests for financial and technical assistance from child-care providers and advocacy projects. Why this opposition? Says Sophia Bracy Harris, executive director of the Federation of Child Care Centers of Alabama (FOCAL): 

"Men, as well as women, are conditioned to believe child care remains the mother's responsibility, rather than a service absolutely critical to society. It is seen as women's work and thus not valued in economic terms. Furthermore, we lack the models of how child care can be translated from family providers to viable businesses. But not only is child care a critical service and a business, it is an industry that women can take control of." 

1. Creates Jobs and Income 

Child-care jobs are entry-level jobs, suitable to the skills and educational levels of most low-income women. Some critics of child care as a CED strategy argue that such entry-leval jobs are a poor alternative to public assistance. But child-care jobs also provide opportunities for personal growth and mobility. Many child-care workers in the 36 community-based centers belonging to the Rural Day Care Association of Northeastern North Carolina, for example, began as CETA or JTPA trainees, went on to earn their GED, and eventually qualified for the national Headstart Program credential. Child-care workers often develop their skills and later become center administrators or managers of their own centers or home-based businesses. 

Child care is a demanding occupation, requiring women to develop a wide range of skills and knowledge that can be translated to other employment situations. Such skills include expertise on infant and child development, children's diseases and illnesses, food preparation and nutrition, first aid, activities planning, record keeping, and interpersonal skills. 

Child-care ventures are also labor-intensive operations, with the potential to create large numbers of jobs. Most state licensing laws require ratios of one adult child-care worker for every four to six children. The 36 community child-care centers in northeastern North Carolina, for example, employ 170 women, all jobs created within the past five years. Though this record cannot compete with Perdue, Inc., whose poultry processing plants in the region employ 3,200 (mainly women) workers, these child-care jobs are vastly superior in their opportunities for training and mobility, in their security, in their relative freedom from health hazards, and in their social importance. 

Besides the staff jobs, child care makes it possible for low-income women to work. In northeastern North Carolina, 60 to 75 percent of the 1,900 children served through the Rural Day Care Association's centers come from single-parent households. It is reasonable to conclude that most of these mothers would have great difficulty in securing reliable, decent, affordable, and full-time child care were it not for the Rural Day Care Association's centers. At any point in time, therefore, approximately 1,000 poor, minority women are able to work because their children attend community child-care centers. 

Politicians understand the link between child care and economic development, as a recent incident in North Carolina graphically demonstrates: 

Alternatives for Children, a community-based organization in Gates County, opened two day-care centers in 1977 following two years of hard work. Situated in the far northeastern corner of the state, the county is poor and primarily black. Most of its residents commute to neighboring Virginia for work. Until 1981 Gates County had no industry. 

In 1981, the North Carolina Department of Human Resources told Gates County that it had no more money to support its day-care centers. The centers were almost entirely dependent on state subsidies. Parents were notified by the Department of Social Services that the centers would close in ten days. Meetings were set up with local and state officials, but to no avail. 

The next week, Governor Jim Hunt came to Gates County to cut the ribbon for the county's first industry, a cut-and-sew plant which, incidentally, was hiring all women. Local dignitaries were not the only participants at the ceremony. The 50 children served by the centers also came, bearing signs which read, "DAY-CARE FOR WORKING MOTHERS, KEEP OUR DAY-CARE CENTERS OPEN." The governor promised that he would do what he could. That next week, Alternatives for Children was told that the state had found enough money to keep one center open. And somewhere close to 25 mothers were able to work at the new apparel plant. 

Finally, child-care operations require little capital investment for the number of jobs they create. The estimated cost of opening a center that serves toddlers in northeastern North Carolina is currently $8,000 to $10,000. In almost every case, facilities are donated, loaned, or leased, and renovations are achieved through volunteer labor and free materials. Thus a job can be created at a unit cost of approximately $2,200. In contrast, the unit cost of creating a job at a worker-owned hosiery mill in North Carolina in 1984 was approximately $17,000. 

Income supplements should be a critical component of any women's CED strategy, particularly in rural areas. Child-care ventures can effectively supplement the incomes of low-income women by providing opportunities for part-time work, particularly in home-based situations. Not only do home-based providers get actual cash income through fees, but they can reduce their income tax payment by deducting on a prorated basis some normal living costs as business expenses, as well as by taking depreciation allowances on equipment, appliances, and furnishings. Such supplements often mean the difference between mere survival and a decent standard of living. 

2. Fits into a Growth Industry 

There is no question that a growing demand for child care exists. Nationally, over nine million children under the age of six have mothers in the labor force. Projections for 1990 yield almost 3.4 million more children under six with working mothers, a 38 percent increase since 1980. In the years between 1970 and 1984, the percentage of children under three with working mothers rose nearly 30 percent; that increase was 95 percent for children under one year of age. 

Corporate America recognizes the profit and growth potential of the child-care industry. Kinder Care, based in Montgomery, Alabama, owns and operates more than 1,000 centers nationwide. Other for-profit child-care companies with exceptional growth records include Daybridge Learning Company (a subsidiary of ARA), Gerber Childrens Center (a subsidiary of Gerber Foods), La Petite Academies, and Children's World (a subsidiary of Grand Met USA). These four companies each own and operate hundreds of child-care centers. 

Moreover, this demand is fueled by both the private market and a public subsidy system. Two-parent professional working families create a rapidly expanding private fee market, stimulated by child-care tax credits at the federal and sometimes the state level. Public funds from the federal Social Services Block Grant program and from state appropriations help to support child-care slots for low-income children. Though woefully inadequate, such public funds provide a source of income for community-based centers and individual providers serving low-income, particularly female-headed households. It is important for low-income communities to capture these public funds which, in some states, can go to for-profit providers, or which fail to reach the community at all when no certified centers exist. 

3. Serves Low-Income Community Needs 

The lack of decent and affordable child care is frequently the greatest barrier low-income women face in securing employment. After pleading and begging their mothers, neighbors, aunts and grandmothers to babysit one more time until other arrangements can be made, women often are forced to quit working. In 1983, two-thirds of the women in the labor force were either single, widowed, divorced, or married to a man whose income was less than $15,000. A great proportion of these women headed single-parent households. In 1983, one in five children lived in a single-parent household. This number is projected to increase to one in four children by 1990. It is clear that low-income women sorely need decent, affordable child care for their children if they are to go to work. 

The problem also exists for working-class families, caught in the squeeze between ineligibility for public subsidies and the unaffordable fees of center-based or other quality child-care arrangements. Although they usually can afford to pay, even middle-class families often cannot find satisfactory child-care arrangements, particularly for infants. 

The need for child care is both a quantity and a quality issue. There are 22,000 licensed child care centers in this country today, about half of which are for-profit operations. Assuming that each center serves an average of 25 children, this means that 550,000 children are now attending child-care centers. Surely those remaining 8.5 million children under six with working mothers are not all adequately served by the extended family, individual providers, or exempt church-run centers. 

4. Develops Management and Entrepreneurial Skills 

A CED strategy seeks to develop opportunities for increasing the management and entrepreneurial skills of low-income community members. Child-care center managers frequently come from the ranks of child-care workers, community activists, or concerned parents. Home-based child-care providers are, in fact, independent, self-employed small businesspeople. There are few other opportunities in low-income communities for women to develop the skills needed to manage or own ventures that are self-sustaining and sometimes even profitable. 

5. Promotes Community Control 

One primary goal of a CED strategy is to increase the control of a low-income community over its resources and institutions. Nothing is more important to the future of a community than the development of its children. Most communities have little control over the schools that their children attend. They can, however, readily control the community's preschool institutions by creating community-based child-care centers or by bringing home-based providers into a community-supported network. 

In northeastern North Carolina, community child-care centers have provided an opportunity for women to develop skills which are then used in other economic and political arenas. To survive, these centers have to act as effective advocates before local and state governmental bodies and with local social services agencies. The experience of public advocacy for child care has been critical to the development of minority women leaders in the region. In Alabama, for example, the Federation of Child Care Centers devotes much of its resources to its Black Women's Leadership and Economic Development Project, believing that change at the local level, in child care or in any other facet of life, will come about only if community people realize their own power and potential. 

6. Stimulates Ancillary Businesses 

In developing a comprehensive CED strategy, the community must look at the potential of any venture to create spinoffs that it can own and operate. Child-care ventures have the potential to generate service ventures such as food preparation, health screening, and transportation; and production ventures such as the manufacturing of toys, playground equipment, and furniture. The Rural Day Care Association of Northeastern North Carolina, for example, is studying the feasibility of a playground equipment manufacturing venture to help support its operations. The idea came to the association after it realized that it had paid hundreds of dollars for a piece of playground equipment that can be made for less than $20. 

The Barriers 

In sum, child-care ventures make good sense as projects for low-income women. But why has development been so limited? What are the barriers to creating child-care ventures in the face of growing demand, clear-cut need, and ability to pay? 

The first and possibly most important barrier to the development of community-based child-care ventures is attitude. Child care is not perceived as a legitimate economic development venture and thus it is denied assistance from those church, foundation, and government funding sources that give money to economic development projects. This attitude stems from the belief that as women's work, child-care jobs are not real or remunerative jobs. There is no question that child-care providers are poorly paid. All work, however, that was originally provided by unpaid labor in the home is poorly paid. In fact, child care pays as well as most manufacturing jobs held by women in the South. 

Other barriers to the development of community-based child-care providers include: 

• the difficulty of locating suitable facilities available for center-based care; 

• the costs of acquiring, renovating, and equipping centers relative to the resources available to the community; 

• the detailed government regulations which affect the start-up, acquisition, and ongoing operation costs; 

• the government licensing regulations and processes which greatly discourage potential child-care providers; 

• the rising cost of insurance coverage; 

• the lack of knowledge needed to start up and operate a child-care facility; and 

• the low wages, social value and self-esteem associated with child-care work. 

Strong support organizations for child-care providers can overcome these barriers. But their establishment will require the commitment of local providers and concerned citizens, as well as the financial support of churches, foundations, and other community-oriented funding sources. The payoffs can be substantial. Not only has the Rural Day Care Association of Northeastern North Carolina, made it possible for more than 1,000 single parents to work, but its advocacy has meant millions of dollars more for subsidized child care in a poor remote region of North Carolina.