In 2022, NationSwell launched the first year of the Case for Childcare Collaborative to explore the business case for supporting working families, the childcare economy, and early childhood education. 

The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects have had profound implications for women in the workforce – millions of women left the workplace in 2020 and over 2 million women have still not returned, many due to the lack of affordable and accessible childcare. The implications of this social and economic issue have exposed a few key dynamics: (1) the US has a broken care system that has disproportionately affected women, especially BIPOC women, and frontline workers and their families (2) women, in particular, mothers, tend to bear the brunt of unpaid caregiving responsibilities, and (3) the economic consequences of this workforce exodus not only affects families and individual households, but business growth and the U.S. economy suffer overall, too. 

In partnership with American Family Insurance Corporate Institute for Corporate and Social Impact, Annie E. Casey Foundation, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Pivotal Ventures, and Working for Women, our Case for Childcare Collaborative has spent the last year engaging in research to understand the widespread challenges and opportunities when it comes to making the business case for childcare and the economic impact at large, while also seeking out solutions and examples of what is working.

We believe employers have an important role to play in the child care movement. We believe that care workers, early childhood educators, families, and working parents everywhere deserve more when it comes to access to family-sustaining wages, paid parental leave, and public support, like universal early childhood education. 

We are thrilled to continue this work for a second year, doubling down our efforts on employers of frontline, low-wage, and gig workers. 

Sources: Brookings, SHRM, US Chamber of Commerce