Why the Burden Is Unequal

For households with children, the child-care constraint has two separate dimensions: how often a household reports a problem, and how much work time is lost when it does. This chapter examines how income, the age and number of children, family structure, and household labor-force position change those dimensions. The practical judgment is not to rank one household type against another, but to recognize when a low overall average is concealing a concentrated exposure or a smaller set of available buffers.

The Census Bureau's breakdowns are especially useful because they do not move in one direction. Some groups report problems more often; others report more days lost after reporting a problem. That divergence is the evidence. It shows why “who is affected?” and “how severe is the reported effect?” must be answered separately.

Income changes both the price and the buffer

The income pattern begins before a household reports a child-care problem. Among households with children ages 0–13, 11.5 percent of those below 100 percent of the federal poverty level paid for child care so someone in the household could work. Among households above 400 percent of the poverty level, 33.4 percent paid for care. The corresponding conditional average amounts were about $4,202 and $13,400. A higher dollar amount at the top of the income distribution does not by itself mean a greater burden. The lower-income households that paid spent 13.3 percent of household income, compared with 4.9 percent among the higher-income households.

These figures describe two different forms of capacity. Higher-income households were more likely to report a paid arrangement and, among those paying, paid more in dollars. Lower-income households paid less in dollars but devoted a larger share of their income to that purchase. The data do not establish why a household did not pay for care, whether a cheaper arrangement was available, or whether the purchase solved the household's scheduling problem. They do show that the same market solution is not equally affordable when measured against household resources.

The problem-and-loss figures sharpen the distinction. Households below 100 percent of the poverty level reported a problem obtaining care at a rate of 6.2 percent and, among those reporting a problem, lost an average of 114.6 workdays. Households above 400 percent reported problems at 3.1 percent and lost 43.3 days on average. The middle income grouping fell between them, with a 3.5 percent problem rate and 59.2 lost days. The lower-income group therefore appears at both ends of the burden calculation: a larger share met the problem definition, and the conditional loss was more than twice as large as in the highest-income group.

That pattern should not be reduced to a claim that income directly caused the lost days. Several pathways could sit behind it. A household with fewer resources may have less ability to purchase a replacement arrangement or fewer ways to absorb a schedule change.