Vermont child care disruptions pushing women out of jobs, says payroll company

As the pandemic has limited options for child care, the onus of choosing between raising children and developing a career has increasingly fallen on women.

Last month, Vermont ranked among the top states in the country where women were forced to leave their jobs during the omicron surge's disruptions of in-person school and day care, according to a new study by the payroll processing company Gusto.

Gusto's data found that during January 2022, over 40% of Vermont households faced disruptions in child care. That same month, Vermont women were 4% more likely than men to have left their jobs.

In addition to Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire also saw high rates of child care disruptions last month, along with women leaving the workforce at higher rates than men.

“When there are child care breakdowns, even before the pandemic, it was always women leaving the workforce more so than men,” said Jeannina Perez of the nonprofit MomsRising told Minnesota Public Radio in an article about the Gusto study.

Lack of affordable and accessible options for child care is a key reason cited by the Vermont Commission on Women for the state's gender wage gap.

According to a 2020 report by the commission, women working full-time in Vermont take home a median annual salary that is 16% less than that of men. This equates to a gap of $8,000.

The report also found that, nationally, women are seven times more likely than men to cite child care problems as their reason for working part-time.

While women are half the U.S. population, they are two-thirds of the country's caregivers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Contact April Fisher at amfisher@freepressmedia.com. Follow on Twitter: @AMFisherMedia

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Career vs. child care: Vermont women face dilemma during COVID-19