Today, women are achieving milestones in business, academics, and government They’re making advances in science, medicine, and technology. And they’re strengthening our communities through service and activism. It may seem as though there are no limits to what women can accomplish and in many parts of the world, participating in the same activities and pursuing the same careers as men is more possible now than ever before.
Women in the Workplace
But we still have a long way to go. In the US, women now account for nearly half of the country’s workers, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women who are full-time wage and salary workers had earnings totaling only 81% of what similar men are making.
As more women aspire to climb the corporate ladder, the higher they get, the less likely it is that they’ll have female peers in similar leadership positions. In fact, only 15 percent of corporate America executives are women, and in Fortune 500 companies, women account for a mere 5 percent of CEOs — down from a record high(!) of 6 percent in 2017.
The Need for Child Care
But there’s another side to this story. Many of the women working today are also moms, which makes having access to reliable, responsible, and trustworthy child care critical to today’s workforce. That’s why we want to celebrate the accomplishments of women around the world while simultaneously pressing for more gender parity and recognizing the vital role sitters play in providing women with the opportunity to continue making these important strides.
Moms
The need for dependable child care is great: According to BabyCenter’s State of Modern Motherhood Survey, 65% of millennial moms with kids under the age of 6 work — that’s double their parent’s generation. In addition, data from the Center for American Progress shows that 42 percent of mothers were the primary or sole breadwinners in their household, bringing home half or more of the family’s earnings.
Dads
While men have definitely stepped it up compared to their own dads, moms are still relied upon to shoulder the majority of child care duties and household chores. A Pew Social Trends study reveals that moms spend 13.5 hours per week caring for children, while dads devote a little more than half of that — 7.3 hours a week.
Mental Burden
But it’s more than just cooking, cleaning and changing diapers: Moms also typically carry the mental burden of parenting and managing a household. In other words, mom remembers to register the kids for soccer and turn in field trip permission slips and she can easily point you to the location of any dry good in the kitchen, your favorite pair of socks and where you left your glasses.
Sitters Make It Possible
At Sittercity, we know that worries about not having adequate child care can lead to a parent saying “no” to career opportunities — a concern that disproportionately affects women. Sitters make it possible for these already busy moms to say yes.
Moreover, sitters, daycare employees, and nannies are overwhelmingly female. According to data from 2018, 92% of the nearly 1 million child care workers in the United States are women. The women who choose a career in child care are providing an invaluable service that supports a mom’s ability to enter the workforce, prioritize career development, make economic contributions, and grow personally and professionally.
We’re Proud of Our Sitters
Today’s families rely on skilled child care workers, but rarely do we thank our sitters and nannies for the hard work that they do. They’re critical to the success of women in the workplace, and they are making an economic contribution of their own. As the company that pioneered child care online, we’re grateful for the sitters who have found rewarding work through Sittercity — and we know that the families who have been able to easily find, interview, and hire dependable, qualified sitters and nannies through Sittercity agree. We’re proud that our sitters are providing women with the opportunity to succeed professionally and helping to raise the next generation of women and men who will continue to press for progress.
