Day care, already in short supply, becomes scarcer during the pandemic - Boston Globe
By Gal Tziperman Lotan
The coronavirus pandemic has deepened an already acute shortage of child-care options in Boston, especially in neighborhoods with more Latino residents, a new report has found.
Researchers and experts said they worry the financial struggles of child-care providers will compound economic inequalities, both for parents who rely on affordable child care to work and for their children, whose lack of access to crucial development opportunities may have long-term consequences.
With more children staying home, because of COVID fears or because their families cannot afford day care, child-care providers who have long operated on razor-thin margins, are struggling to retain and pay their staff, and expressed concern over whether child-care providers can remain in business during the pandemic or beyond.
“It’s a workforce that is undervalued in terms of their pay, in terms of the learning opportunities that are available to them. I think that previous to the pandemic, people didn’t really understand what a benefit it is to have an early childhood education workforce,” said Kristin McSwain, executive director of the Boston Opportunity Agenda, a public-private partnership focused on education that published the new report.