A global look at the childcare crisis

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September 23, 2021

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Male CEOs get paid more if they sound “manly,” the childcare crisis is a global economic fiasco, and the childcare crisis is global, but some governments are handling it better than others. Have a great Thursday.
– Countering the childcare crisis. By now, we’re all too familiar with the economic devastation that American women have faced over the course of the pandemic. But they are not alone. In many countries across the globe, COVID-19 has dealt women employment setbacks, and a common thread is the crisis in childcare. With in-person schooling suspended, day care centers shuttered, and many other caregiving options off the table, women filled the gap, leaving their jobs at a higher rate than men.
While many of the factors behind the crisis are universal, countries have responded to them in different ways, and this new Bloomberg story offers snapshots of some of the most effective—or most promising—counter measures.
In Australia, for instance, the government made childcare free for the first three months of the pandemic. The measure kept childcare centers in business, which helped women’s employment recover from an initial hit. Australia learned just how effective this policy had been when the country went back into lockdown this year without fully subsidizing childcare. Early data indicate women are losing their jobs at a higher rate than men.
In Germany, women were more likely to spend time caring for children during the pandemic, but they weren’t any more likely than men to lose their jobs, Bloomberg reports. That’s because the country already had in place a comprehensive government-funded furlough program that compensates parents who miss work to care for a sick kid. The government expanded that scheme to cover missed work due to COVID school closures.
In Canada, the pandemic appears to be the final push needed to get a national childcare plan over the finish line. First introduced by Liberals in 2005—and later scrapped by Conservatives—the new five-year government program proposed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a Liberal, will invest $23.74 billion to reduce the average child care cost to $7.94 per day per child. The plan is based on a model Quebec implemented decades ago that’s resulted in more women in the labor force.
All three governments share a hands-on approach to childcare, an idea that the U.S.—whose childcare industry is operating at just 88% pre-pandemic capacity—only now seems to be taking seriously. “The free market works well in many different sectors,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week, “but child care is not one of them.”
Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman
The Broadsheet, Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women, is coauthored by Kristen Bellstrom, Emma Hinchliffe, and Claire Zillman. Today’s edition was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.

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PARTING WORDS

"When I became a ranger, I was taking back my own history."
-Betty Reid Soskin, America's oldest park ranger. Soskin has fought to tell Black women's stories at Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park. She turned 100 this week.