Economics of Caring Labor: Improving Compensation in the Early Childhood Workforce. Summary. Working Paper Series.

Improving compensation in early care and education (ECE) has been and will continue to be an extremely difficult policy issue. The Mailman Family Foundation and the Foundation for Child Development convened a group of 18 representatives of diverse disciplines concerned about child- and elder-care compensation. This report details the issues examined in this meeting, presents the broad approaches to improving compensation, and identifies recommended strategies for increasing awareness about low child-care wages. The report indicates that the greatest challenge to addressing low compensation is developing proposals that are realistic, can be implemented, and have a reasonable chance of success. Two broad approaches are presented: (1) raising wages directly; and (2) launching campaigns to affect wages by more indirect means, such as raising wages and benefits for all low income workers, and unionizing/organizing the early childhood workforce. More specific recommendations are highlighted as a guide to action, including: (1) studying ongoing state efforts; (2) anticipating the need for both state and federal strategies; (3) investigating the feasibility of expanding state spending for prekindergarten; (4) defining the population of dependent caregivers; (5) developing and disseminating outcome measures associated with high-quality care; (6) encouraging and implementing community-level demonstration projects; and (7) understanding why there is market failure in dependent care. The report concludes by asserting that improving compensation for ECE caregivers will require interdisciplinary approaches that bring together experts from diverse backgrounds. A list of meeting participants is appended. (KB)