What Happened to Working Women?

Gail Collins NY Times Op-Ed has some surprising stats: the number of women in the workforce in the U.S compared to other countries shrunk from 7th to 24th place. Why???

“One of the reasons is clearly, positively, absolutely the cost of child care. It’s
incredible that we’ve built a society that relies on women in the labor
force yet makes no discernible effort to deal with this problem.“

We are often asked why women leave the workforce and the cost of childcare is one of the most frequent reasons.

–The cost of childcare is not worth commuting hours to a job and never seeing my kids. 

–Why am I spending so much money to get a babysitter to network to find a job?

–My entire salary is going to pay someone else to care for my children.

These are real concerns, especially when women have small children. They find themselves making the calculation that it is not worth staying in the workforce. Then, once their children reach kindergarten, they have a hard time stepping back into full or even quality part-time work. Until policy on childcare in the country changes, this is going to be an on-going issue for women (disclaimer: this is a particular issue for women who are lucky enough to have the choice. Many women do NOT have the option to leave the workforce.) In the meantime, staying engaged in some capacity in meaningful work is the best way to ensure that women do not give up on their careers.