Many employers offer some form of backup child care. For example, Google offers a stipend to cover the cost of care for employees who have school-aged children in need of additional support while they work.
However, it is also found that the structure and availability of these benefits varied widely from company to company. For example, some companies offer backup child care only to part-time employees, while others limit their stipends to one year. Some stipends are paid on a per-use basis while some are paid upfront, while others only apply towards certain daycare providers or specific service areas. The most common benefit, however — offered by 93% of companies — is financial assistance with back-up child care for school breaks like winter and spring break.
In order to provide some common context and compare the different sizes of stipends offered by companies, it is intened to get a sense of where the money was going. In order to do this, analyze the report of 80 largest privately held employers in the US.
Of the 80 employers, the percentage of companies that offered some form of backup care included:
- Part-time employees – 76%
- Full-time employees (by number of hours worked) – 52%
- Both part-time and full-time employees — 39%
- Stipends ranged from $100 a month to more than $2,000/month.
- The median salary for employees who received these stipends was approximately $60,000 a year.
Incidentally, this data is only slightly better than “no backup care at all” which was the case for 4% of employers. It also became clear that many companies offered additional benefits to employees with children.
For example, 39% of employers paid a stipend to both part-time and full-time employees. 18% offered a stipend to part-time employees while only providing a stipend to full-time employees in 7% of companies.
A few companies, including Google and Facebook, did offer backup care to all employees regardless of their status.
Employer-Sponsored backup Child Care benefits:
The United States is getting more expensive, with the median cost of raising a child in 2018 rising from $11,970 to $14,680. The resulting need for childcare is not being met, so many parents and caregivers turn to sponsored backup child-care benefits offered by employers. These can save time for busy parents and give them an automatic backup in case their children are sick or have other emergencies.
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) requires that most employers offer unpaid leave to eligible employees. This leave should be available to prevent the employee from losing their job or a job benefit and allows them to take care of family members for the period of time specified by the law. Employers with 50 or more employees are subject to FMLA and must comply with its requirements. In 2005, President George W.
- Propose a plan that offers salary enhancement to registered nurses which would be used to pay for private backup child care services for the children of these nurses.
- Propose that corporations and lawmakers implement a policy that would make family-friendly benefits such as employer-sponsored backup child-care plans an attractive hiring or retention tool for both female and male employees.
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Study
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has been a leader in studying and creating policy recommendations on how to improve backup child care services.
The backup child care benefit covers all the expenses of the employee such as bedding, food and clothing, transportation, and all other expenses necessary for the care of their children.
The National Academy of Sciences has been a leader in studying and creating policy recommendations on how to improve child care.
A 1990 study report by the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that employers provide employees with on-site daycare facilities or supplemental child care benefits to enable them to afford adequate hours of work.
It is the finding of this report and others that the poor quality of backup child care services in the United States undermines parental employment efforts, leads to motor vehicle crashes, lowers school test scores, and leads to higher rates of child abuse.
- The family-friendly benefit should be provided so that families can have child care without having an additional source of income;
- The family-friendly benefit should be provided for a portion of the time during which employees spend with their children.
Top Stress of working parents while finding the backup child care service for their children:
Parents often have a lot of stressors in their lives and managing backup child care can be one of the most difficult for a family. These are the top three sources of stress for working parents in regard to their backup child care:
1) Finding quality backup child care providers
2) Managing work schedules in order to provide regular childcare hours
3) The difficulties with caring for children while at work and balancing work/home responsibilities.
Difficulties of Parents Finding Backup Childcare Provider
If a parent is having difficulty finding a backup child care provider , and therefore has to work late hours, that can be very difficult to manage with the children. As well as this problem the parent has to balance the stress of working late hours while dealing with the other needs of the family. Making arrangements for backup child care at this time is difficult because most young children are in bed by 8 pm and there is not enough time for them to be left at home alone before that.
If the parent has to leave the children at home alone that could be dangerous. As well as this, if they have to find someone to look after the children while they work late hours it often comes as a surprise that they are unable to get someone and end up going out very late at night with no other option.
Struggles of Parents
If parents cannot seem to find a quality backup child care provider, this leads to stress because they feel as though their children are not getting the best services available. As well as this they can feel overwhelmed if they have a night out with friends and are unable to find care for their children. They might wonder if a friend can look after them and then realize it is not possible. If a parent is constantly busy at work, they often do not have time to actively look for child care services and end up leaving their children at home alone while they go out very late at night. This can be very difficult for the parent to deal with because it causes them to feel stressed about their work load and also have the guilt of leaving their children alone.
Managing Work Schedule
Managing work schedules in order to provide regular childcare hours is another source of stress for working parents. When a parent cannot take breaks from their job or schedule in time for childcare, this makes it hard for them to provide a stable schedule for their children. This is hard on the parent as well as the child care provider and often leads to arguments between both parties.
At work, it may be difficult for the parent to find time to focus on their child care needs. It is not often that a parent can find babysitting services in the middle of the week when they are at work. There is also a large amount of pressure at work and a lot of things every day that are unrelated to childcare. This greatly limits the time that parents have to visit their backup childcare provider, or even go out themselves in order to look for care that they can afford. When a parent has to work late hours, it is difficult to find someone to look after the children and if they are able to find someone it can be expensive and difficult.
Several types of childcare services are available in most areas.
Some examples include: emergency backup child care services, family/friend caregiving, emergency daycare facilities, nannies. In-home daycare programs are sometimes operated illegally by family members or other persons with no formal training for childcare. Such illegal daycares may not have appropriate training or adequate space to care for children, and may also be more likely to employ persons who are motivated to work in childcare so that they can care for their own children. In the US, as well as other developed nations including the UK, informal caregivers are typically neighbors and relatives of the family requiring backup child-care services.
Working parents can find it stressful when their children’s backup childcare provider has no backup plan if there is an emergency that prevents the provider from showing up to work.
Long lasting impact of employer sponsored backup childcare plan:
The problem with childcare is that it’s expensive, time-consuming, and unreliable. And parents often have to make a difficult choice about whether to go back to work and leave their child in daycare or stay at home without any significant income. But according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, one solution could be employer-sponsored backup childcare plans.
Here are few of long lasting benefits of employer sponsored backup childcare plan:
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Retention:
The study focused on the impact of backup childcare on the likelihood that mothers will return to work after giving birth and remain employed for up to four years afterwards. The research also looked at whether women who worked for firms offering backup childcare had greater job satisfaction, better benefits and higher wages than did women who didn’t have access to company-sponsored childcare.The results showed that mothers who had a genuine option of backup childcare were 2.6 times more likely to return to work within two weeks; 2.3 times more likely to stay at the same job for six months; and 2.4 times more likely to be working for the same firm for two years or longer.
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Reduced work woes:
The study found that mothers with backup childcare were significantly less likely to suffer a serious work-related injury or illness that caused them to miss time at work. Mothers who had an employer-sponsored backup childcare plan were 1.5 times less likely to miss a week or more of work due to illness or injury.
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Affordable:
Because the cost of childcare is often more than a parent’s combined work and childcare expenses, backup childcare can ease the financial burden. Mothers who had backup childcare were almost twice as likely to receive employer-provided sick pay and 55 percent less likely to need public assistance during their employment period.
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Eye opening:
Because mothers with backup childcare were less likely to suffer a work-related injury or illness, they had more time to be with their children. According to the study, mothers who had an employer-sponsored backup childcare plan were 1.5 times more likely to spend between 30 and 59 minutes per day with their infant or toddler.
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The impact of backup child carriage:
Research shows that employer-sponsored backup childcare plans have a lasting impact on workers. Women who had access to backup childcare were 12% more likely to find new jobs within one year of giving birth, and 23% more likely to stay with an employer for two or more years after giving birth.
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Benefits of backup child carriage plan:
When it comes to benefits, women with access to backup child care also enjoyed more than just a helping hand after giving birth. These women earn higher wages and have better benefits than women without backup childcare. According to the study, women with access to employer-sponsored backup childcare tended to be 13% more satisfied with their benefits overall.
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Impact of backup childcare on the state budget:
In the short term, sponsored backup child care is a good thing for business and personal health, but the long-term question is whether this type of care is economically feasible. In a study conducted by University of New Hampshire researchers, it was clear that back then:
- A) The state’s health care costs rose faster than any other factor, and
- B) The state’s expenditures on maternal-related services increased from $6.
https://nanniesandkidsunited.com/cost-2/
