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Centering Black Women And Women Of Color In The Child Care Debate
The premise underlying the “parent-based care” option is that staying home is a choice equally available to all families, and that public policy should stop favoring paid care over that choice.
NewsOne
By Lenice C. Emanuel
The premise underlying the “parent-based care” option is that staying home is a choice equally available to all families, and that public policy should stop favoring paid care over that choice. Alabama’s own labor data undercuts that premise. Among Alabama women, Black women have the highest labor force participation rate of any racial group, at roughly 58 percent, higher than white, Hispanic, or Asian women in the state, according to research compiled by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.
That pattern is not incidental; it mirrors national data showing Black mothers work at higher rates than other mothers regardless of their children’s ages, often because a single income cannot cover a household’s basic costs, and because Black women are statistically less likely to have a spouse’s income to fall back on in the first place.