WHAT IF WOMEN STAYED HOME?
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
What's a working mother to do? One study says that children in day care are
more likely to be aggressive than those that are not, and another study says
that low pay contributes to high turnover and staffing problems at child care
centers. Both stories generate headlines that can only induce guilt, causing
many women to wonder whether they have made the right choices for their
children. And as the culture wars rage, some feel pressure to stay home
instead of working. Guess what, though? Many women have no choice but to
work. Nearly single moms who are the sole source of support for their
children head 20 percent of white families, and more than 40 percent of black
ones. What's a working mother to do? To begin with, we ought to read the
fine print.
The aggressiveness finding came from a study by the national
Institute of
Child Health and Human Development, the largest report on childcare ever.
The sample size - more than 1300 - makes the findings credible. The fact that
children were tracked at 10 sites since 1991, make the results comprehensive.
The headlines focused on the fact that 17 percent of the children in the
study who spent more than 30 hours a week in day care exhibited some
behavioral problems, while just 6 percent of those who spent less than 10
hours a week in day care exhibited the same kinds of problems. But the fine
print shows that these problems fell into "normal" range, and that pushing
and grabbing toys are not necessarily pathological behaviors. Further, the
majority of the youngsters who spent more than 30 hours a week in day care
exhibited no aggressiveness problems.
How did the story get spun out of control? Some say that the
researcher
who volunteered to be the media spokesperson, Jay Belsky of Birbeck College
in London, had something of an axe to grind. Others say there is a natural
bias against childcare that the study played into. Certainly, many reporters
didn't read the fine print. Some made the easy leap that childcare causes
aggressiveness, stoking the guilt that working moms already feel about
leaving their toddlers with others.
What if more women stayed home? It might be better for their
toddlers (and
then again, it might not, given the frustration that some might feel), but is
it better for the economy? After all, women are 46 percent of the labor
force. What if working mothers of children under 6 (there were nearly 10
million of them in 1998) decided to stay home in response to studies that
their work lives are bad for their children? Exactly who is going to fill
the gap that women workers would leave by withdrawing from the labor force?
Think about it - women's absence from the workplace would
create a labor
shortage. It would drive wages up and increase costs. It might force
employers to make special considerations for those women with children,
considerations like on-site childcare and flexible hours. In the long run,
if the mothers of small children decided to withdraw from the labor force,
the shortage that their absence precipitated might improve the status of
other workers.
That's wishful thinking, of course! In
response to labor shortages in the
high-tech world, employers moved to relax immigration rules with the H-1B
visa. If there were fewer women in the labor force, employers would probably
find ways other than improving pay and working conditions to combat labor
shortage. That's why the study on working conditions in childcare centers is
sobering. Prepared by researchers at the University of California at
Berkeley and the Center for the Child Care Workforce, the study says that
high turnover hurt the quality of childcare. It went on to say that
compensation in childcare centers had not kept pace with inflation, and
contributed to turnover problems. If we know that there is a connection
between the quality of childcare and the pay that is provided, why haven't
pay levels risen for childcare workers? Mainly, because of the perception
that childcare work is "easy" work that comes naturally to women.
Good people are leaving childcare jobs, though, because they
need to be paid
a competitive wage. As the quality of childcare declines, the pressure on
working mothers increases. Some of the best child care centers in urban
areas have long waiting lists and high tuitions, yet demand for these
services does not abate because many women have to work. Many mothers are
forced to make catch-as-catch-can child care arrangements, leaving their
children with friends or relatives because they cannot find structured
childcare. Some are forced to extreme measures, such as leaving their
children home alone or in a locked automobile. Some have been prosecuted for
child neglect when pushed to these extreme measures, but if childcare is not
available and they must work, what are they to do?
How would our economy be impacted if working mothers stayed
home?
Consideration of that question might change the way we approached the
childcare issue.