Access to affordable child care impacts women’s lifetime economic security

Accessing child care is a logistical challenge for many families, especially for families with lower incomes. The lack of public investment in care infrastructure is also one important reason that women—as both paid child care providers and mothers—bring home less pay, experience higher poverty rates than men at every stage in life, and are less secure in retirement.

In a recently released report, CPSP and the National Women’s Law Center demonstrate how investing in child care is an investment in women’s lifetime economic security. Robert Paul Hartley, Columbia School of Social Work faculty affiliate of CPSP, provides evidence that investing in high-quality and affordable child care support for families could increase women’s lifetime earnings and retirement saving (on average close to $100,000 for a mother of two children) and help to reduce the gender inequity in earnings. As federal policymakers get ready to take up the issue of infrastructure, it is important that child care remain a central part of the conversation.

In the news: Universal child care could boost women's earnings by $130 billion