More Can Be Less

In the United States today, child care provision is divided into two distinct sectors, public and private. Such an arrangement is not, of course, surprising in a welfare state regime that has been categorized as “liberal” (Esping-Andersen 1990). Nor should it be surprising to discover that this dual system has produced deep inequities in the quality, accessibility, and affordability of child care services. What is perhaps unexpected is that, despite the overall inadequacy of the system, the rate of full-time labor-force participation among American women, including mothers, is currently one of the highest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. ¹ This can be explained by a congeries of factors, including the demand for labor produced by the general upsurge in the U.S. economy (a trend that may now be reversing), relatively well-enforced antidiscrimination legislation in the area of employment, and, since 1996, a shift in public assistance policy “from welfare to workfare” that has pushed thousands of low-skilled women into the labor force. The fact that the majority of U.S. mothers, including those with very young children, are employed outside the home should not, however, be taken as an indication that, despite its flaws, the American child care system “works.” Rather, it suggests that wage-earning parents at all income levels have learned to “make do”—to cope with the everyday stresses and long-term consequences of inadequate provisions, but at a significant toll on the quality of their private lives and the lives of their children (Hochschild 1997).