AUBURN, Wash. (AP) \u2014 After a series of lower-paying jobs, Nicole Slemp finally landed one she loved. She was a secretary for Washington\u2019s child services department, a job that came with her own cubicle, and she had a knack for working with families in difficult situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Slemp expected to return to work after having her son in August. But then she and her husband started looking for child care \u2013 and doing the math. The best option would cost about $2,000 a month, with a long wait list, and even the least expensive option would cost around $1,600, still eating up most of Slemp\u2019s salary. Her husband earns about $35 an hour at a hose distribution company. Between them, they earned too much to qualify for government help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI really didn\u2019t want to quit my job,\u201d says Slemp, 33, who lives in a Seattle suburb. But, she says, she felt like she had no choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dilemma is common in the United States, where high-quality child care programs are prohibitively expensive, government assistance is limited<\/u><\/a>, and daycare openings are sometimes hard to find<\/u><\/a> at all. In 2022, more than 1 in 10 young children<\/a> had a parent who had to quit, turn down or drastically change a job in the previous year because of child care problems. And that burden falls most on mothers, who shoulder more child-rearing responsibilities and are far more likely to leave a job to care for kids<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even so, women\u2019s participation<\/u><\/a> in the workforce has recovered from the pandemic<\/u><\/a>, reaching historic highs in December 2023. But that masks a lingering crisis among women like Slemp who lack a college degree: The gap in employment rates between mothers who have a four-year degree and those who don\u2019t has only grown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For mothers without college degrees, a day without work is often a day without pay. They are less likely to have paid leave<\/u><\/a>. And when they face an interruption in child care<\/u><\/a> arrangements, an adult in the family is far more likely to take unpaid time off or to be forced to leave a job altogether, according to an analysis of Census survey data by The Associated Press in partnership with the Education Reporting Collaborative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In interviews, mothers across the country shared how the seemingly endless search for child care, and its expense, left them feeling defeated. It pushed them off career tracks, robbed them of a sense of purpose, and put them in financial distress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women like Slemp challenge the image of the stay-at-home mom as an affluent woman with a high-earning partner, said Jessica Calarco, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe stay-at-home moms in this country are disproportionately mothers who\u2019ve been pushed out of the workforce because they don\u2019t make enough to make it work financially to pay for child care,\u201d Calarco said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her own research indicates three-quarters of stay-at-home moms live in households with incomes less than $50,000, and half have household incomes of less than $25,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, the high cost of child care has upended the careers of even those with college degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Jane Roberts gave birth in November, she and her husband, both teachers, quickly realized sending baby Dennis to day care was out of the question. It was too costly, and they worried about finding a quality provider<\/u><\/a> in their hometown of Pocatello, Idaho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The school district has no paid medical or parental leave<\/u><\/a>, so Roberts exhausted her sick leave and personal days to stay home with Dennis. In March, she returned to work and husband Mike took leave. By the end of the school year, they\u2019ll have missed out on a combined nine weeks of pay. To make ends meet, they\u2019ve borrowed money against Jane\u2019s life insurance policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the fall, Roberts won\u2019t return to teaching. The decision was wrenching. \u201cI\u2019ve devoted my entire adult life to this profession,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For low- and middle-income women who do find child care, the expense can become overwhelming. The Department of Health and Human Services has defined \u201caffordable\u201d child care as an arrangement that costs no more than 7% of a household budget. But a Labor Department study found fewer than 50 American counties where a family earning the median household income could obtain child care at an \u201c affordable<\/u><\/a> \u201d price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n