We are so excited to unveil a project we’ve been working on: Today, we released “Oregon’s Unmet Child Care Needs. It’s time to invest: Our future depends on it,” a research report co-authored by Mary King, Professor of Economics Emerita, Portland State University, and Lisa Dodson, Research Professor of Sociology, Boston College.
Why do we publish reports like this? Well, they put on paper what we already know is true — in this case, child care is crucial for our families (because it allows parents to work), but because it’s unaffordable and inaccessible for most Oregonians, it’s also one of the biggest barriers to women’s economic stability.
The research shows that the challenges Oregon parents face aren’t individual challenges: The state’s child care crisis is affecting all of our communities. Something has to change.
This report calls for a publicly supported child care system that will make the kind of high quality, affordable care that every parent wants for their kids available to every family that wants it. That is our vision for a new child care system.
So consider this report the start of something big: We’re kick-starting our collective work toward building an equitable and inclusive child care system, and we hope you’ll join us.