United WE study identifies child care needs of women entrepreneurs • Kansas Reflector

TOPEKA — Women entrepreneurs with children need more flexible, less expensive child care, or their businesses could suffer, according to a survey released Tuesday. Part of a United WE l project, the survey was funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. 

“The child care needs of women entrepreneurs is a topic that is crucial to the future of our U.S. economy and the advancement of women in business,” said Wendy Doyle, president and CEO of United WE, a Kansas City, Missouri, organization promoting the role of women in civic life. 

The study, “Care for the Economy,”  surveyed 750 female business owners across the country with children under age 6. The women were from 45 states, 35 percent were non-white, and 31 percent came from households earning less than $50,000. 

Here’s what it found.

Business costs

A lack of adequate child care negatively impacts these women’s businesses, especially ones earning more than $1 million a year. 

Of women surveyed, 57.1 percent said that their business would be more successful if child care met their needs better. More than 60 percent agreed that a lack of child care that meets their needs negatively affects their ability to run a business. 

Respondents who worked more than 30 hours a week, or made more than $1 million per year in gross revenue, were more likely to say a lack of adequate child care harmed their business. Half of respondents who worked less than 30 hours a week felt that their business would be more successful if they had child care that better met their needs, compared with 60 percent of respondents who worked more than 30 hours a week. 

Of respondents whose businesses made less than $1 million per year in gross revenue, 53 percent felt they would be more successful if they had child care that better met their needs, compared with 74 percent who made more than $1 million per year in gross revenue. 

Main needs 

The main needs specified are flexible schedules, infant and toddler care, and early and evening hours. 

About 30 percent of respondents wanted more flexible scheduling, 29 percent of respondents wanted infant and toddler care, and 27 percent of respondents wanted early morning and late evening hours. 

Infant and toddler care “is a problem. It’s a problem everywhere. It has to do with the business model of child care” said Tim Green, director of research and data. “We need a higher number of staff for every younger child because younger children have greater needs.” 

Weekend care, after-school care, part-time care, summer or winter break care and overnight care were all cited as needs. 

This reflects the nontraditional business hours of entrepreneurs. 

“The child care system was really conceived for an older economy, based around nine-to-five work,” Green said. 

According to Green, schedules can be fluid – and the system just isn’t set up to support women in those kinds of roles.

Formal or informal care 

Respondents who work more and make more tend to rely on formal  child care rather than informal arrangements.

Informal care can include a friend or family member, partner or nanny taking care of the child. Formal care includes day care centers, preschool and after-school programs. 

A quarter of respondents who made more than $100 thousand in gross business revenue didn’t use formal care, compared with 75 percent of respondents who made more than $100 thousand in gross business revenue who did. 

Women entrepreneurs are also learning to blend these types of care. 

Kelsey Lents, founder and CEO of Two Birds childcare and school, is quite familiar with the world of child care, with three children under 6. 

“Child care only existed as a binary solution,” Lents said. “The traditional setup, where you drop off in the morning and pick up at night, where you have very little engagement with your child’s community. Or on the other end of the spectrum, some versions of stay at home are cobbling together a patchwork of care that relied heavily on your village.”

Lents wanted full time care. She wanted to get back to work quickly, but also wanted to nurse throughout the day. She wanted to feel like part of her child’s community. She heard from other mothers who felt the same way. 

So she created Two Birds. Lents says it’s an “all inclusive approach to families’ early years.” 

Two Birds has an on-site co-working space, weekend extracurriculars and parent classes, along with early education full time Monday through Friday. 

But child care of that caliber can be expensive. 

According to Green, a 2023 analysis from the U.S. Department of Labor found that child care is unaffordable for the average family in all 50 states. It was this analysis that made United WE want to ask these questions and conduct this survey. 

United WE recommends that in order to “ensure female entrepreneurs have access to reliable, flexible, child care policymakers need to support child care as any other critical business input,” Doyle said. They can do this through expanding the child care and dependent care tax credit and supporting the small business child care investment act, she said.