Child care crisis pushes US mothers out of the labor force

NEW YORK — Angela Wynn had just launched her own project management business, hitting a career stride after years of struggle that began with earning an undergraduate degree as a single mother. Research is increasingly pointing to a retreat of working mothers from the U.S. labor force as the pandemic leaves parents with few child care options and the added burden of navigating distance learning. Women also comprise nearly half the U.S. labor force, making their inability to work a significant drag on the economy and hindering any recovery from the pandemic’s impact. Mothers of children under 12 were working more than six fewer hours a week than fathers in April, compared to less than five fewer hours in February, according to the study, which looked at sub-sample of heterosexual married men and women from the CPS, a monthly survey of 60,000 households “We already knew there was a large gender inequality in the labor force, and the pandemic just makes this worse,” Landivar said. “We set a directional goal for ourselves: Let’s not lose any parents during this.” But most women don’t work for tech companies, and instead make up a majority of the country’s teachers, nurses, child care workers, social workers, librarians, bookkeepers, waitresses, cashiers and housekeepers, according to federal labor figures.