More parents leave jobs to care for children - Axios
By Erica Pandey
As the pandemic drags on, child care is not getting any easier for working parents, and more and more are hitting their limits and leaving their jobs, per a new report from the think tank Third Way, provided exclusively to Axios.
The big picture: Lack of child care is now the third-most cited reason for not working, behind layoffs and furloughs. At the very beginning of the pandemic, it was No. 5.
What's happening: Prices at child care centers have gone up nearly 50% since the onset of the pandemic due to increased sanitization and staffing costs, making them unaffordable for many Americans.
And the 56% of Americans who rely on relatives or grandparents to take care of their kids can no longer do so because it's unsafe.
So more and more parents — especially mothers — are dropping out of the labor force for their children.