How the Child Care Crisis Became a Global Economic Fiasco

Countries are now trying to reverse a once-in-a-century setback for women workers.

The numbers are crushing: By the end of April last year, less than half of the women in Brazil were employed, the lowest level in 30 years. In Australia, around the same time, nearly a tenth of women exited the workforce, while in Japan, women lost jobs at nearly twice the rate of men. In March, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris deemed the exodus a “national emergency,” with 3.5 million mothers of school-aged children in the country having left their jobs between March and April 2020.

“You can’t be a prosperous country with half of your workforce sitting on the sidelines,” said Titan Alon, assistant professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego

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The forces driving the global purge of working women are strikingly similar country to country: School shutdowns, day-care center closures, remote schooling and the ensuing juggle between employment and caregiving forced some parents to cut their hours or leave their jobs altogether. Women, who on average get paid less than men, ultimately bore the brunt — abandoning the workforce more frequently than their husbands. Factor in the reality that women were also more likely to work in industries hit harder by the pandemic, and the result is a once-in-a-century crisis.