Breadwinner Mothers

Who gives care during the Covid-19 pandemic?

People around the world are feeling the pressures of caring for children and other loved ones without paid care services and the support of extended family and social networks. Due to decades of disinvestment and discriminatory policies, many families’ care and support needs were unmet before the pandemic. The loss of normal care structures has pushed many already-marginalized families to the brink.

By IWPR|2020-08-16T17:26:32-05:00August 16, 2020|Comments Off on Who gives care during the Covid-19 pandemic?

Holding Up Half the Sky: Mothers as Workers, Primary Caregivers, & Breadwinners During COVID-19

In the United States, women now make up more than 50 percent of the workforce, reflecting growth in health care, education, and service sectors over the last decade. The decline of the wages and real earnings of all workers over time coupled with the rise in cost of living expenses, such as housing, means that the income and earnings of women are critical to the overall economic security and wellbeing of families.

Breadwinner Mothers by Race/Ethnicity and State

With the large majority of U.S. mothers in the labor force and a steady decline in the real earnings of all workers over recent decades, families are increasingly relying on mothers’ earnings for economic stability. In the United States, half of all households with children under 18 have a breadwinner mother, who is either a single mother who heads a household, irrespective of earnings, or a married mother who provides at least 40 percent of the couple’s joint earnings.