Virus taking toll on child care providers
Black and Latino child care providers have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
INDIANAPOLIS >> When Mary De La Rosa closed her toddler and preschool program in March because of the coronavirus pandemic, she fully expected to serve the 14 children again some day. In the end, though, Creative Explorers closed for good.
It left the families to search for other care options — and the three teachers to file for unemployment benefits.
“We kept trying to find a way,” said De La Rosa, who is of Mexican and Egyptian descent. “But eventually we realized there wasn’t one.”
The story of De La Rosa’s program in the Westchester neighborhood of Los Angeles is being repeated across the country as the pandemic’s effects ripple through child care, disproportionately affecting Black and Latino- owned centers in an industry that has long relied on providers of color.
Policy experts say the U. S. spends a small fraction of federal funds on child care compared to other industrialized nations, an underfunding exacerbated by COVID-19. Soon nearly half of the child care centers in the U. S. may be lost, according to the Center for American Progress.
“Prior to the pandemic, the child care system was fractured.” said Lynette
Fraga, CEO of Child Care Aware of America. “Now, it’s shattered.”
Even before the coronavirus, many parents already faced an impossible choice — caring for their children or earning a living. But COVID-19’s impact on the system has worsened that, Fraga says, and its effects risk creating “child care deserts,” leaving parents unable to return to work, reducing incomes and taking away early education opportunities crucial for a child’s development.
The U. S. child care industry has long relied on Black and Latina women, with women of color mak
ing up 40% of its workforce, according to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. These women have been d i spropor t ionat ely a ffected by COV ID- 19. A July survey from the National Association for the Education of Young Children stated half of minority- owned child care businesses expect to close permanently without additional assistance.
“The pandemic has unveiled how little access to support many of these women have,” Fraga said. “It ’ s ex a c erbat ed a nd spotlighted the inequities we’ve always known existed here.”
Economic disparities in the child care industry fell along racial lines long before COVID-19, said Lea Austin, executive director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment.
Black early educators earn an average of $0.78 less per hour than white early educators, according to the center. While 15% of white women in child care live below the poverty line, poverty rates for Black and Latina child care workers are 23% and 22% respectively, according to a 2017 analysis by the National Women’s Law Center.
“They’re earning lower wages for doing the exact same work,” Austin said.