Companies

${ company.text }

Be the first to rate this company   Not rated   ${ company.score } stars     ${ company.industry}     ${ company.headquarters}

Articles

${ getArticleTitle(article) }

Topics

${ tag.display_name }

Community

${ getCommunityPostText(community_post) }

Contributors

${ contributor.full_name }

${ contributor.short_bio }

Jobs For Employers

Join InHerSight's growing community of professional women and get matched to great jobs and more!

Sign up now

Already have an account? Log in ›

  1. Blog
  2. Research

Most Employers Offer No Child Care Assistance

Because the rising cost of childcare remains out of reach for many in the U.S., women are often forced to leave the workforce. Employers could help, but most aren’t.

Most Employers Offer No Child Care Assistance

The cost of child care is out of reach for many in the United States: The average household spends around $9,000 to $9,600 annually for a single child. That’s roughly double the cost of one year at an in-state university, more than 10 percent of the median income for a two-earner household, and 37 percent of the median income for a single-earner household. Forty-three percent of highly qualified women with children leave the workforce, according to the Harvard Business Review, with the temporal and financial demands of parenthood to blame.

We asked 6,000 women whether their employer provides child care assistance. Less that 9 percent say their employer does. The largest percentage share—67.3 percent—say no. Nearly a quarter are unaware of any employer-subsidized child care assistance.

Employers that offer child care assistance

There are companies working to make life easier for professional parents. Clif Bar & Company, General Mills, and SAS offer on-site child care centers. Patagonia has been offering that service for more than three decades and estimates the company recoups 91 percent of the cost though tax benefits, employee retention, and employee engagement.

Edward Jones offers dependent day care reimbursement accounts, while consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) offers backup child care reimbursement programs (when employees work late, for example).

Methodology

Survey of 6,201 women in April 2019.

About our expert${ getPlural(experts) }

About our author${ getPlural(authors) }

Share this article

Don't Miss Out

Create a free account to get unlimited access to our articles and to join millions of women growing with the InHerSight community

Looks like you already have an account!
Click here to login ›

Invalid email. Please try again!

Sign up with a social account or...

If you already have an account, click here to log in. By signing up, you agree to InHerSight's Terms and Privacy Policy

Success!

You now have access to all of our awesome content

Looking for a New Job?

InHerSight matches job seekers and companies based on millions of workplace ratings from women. Find a job at a place that supports the kinds of things you're looking for.