Beyond Racial/Ethnic Wage Gaps: Disparities in the Early Care and Education Workforce

• In Event: Racial/Ethnic Disparities in the Early Care and Education Workforce

Abstract

Introduction
Child care has long been considered “women’s work,” one that requires little skill and is deserving of little to no pay (Ackerman 2006). In the United States, many of the original child care providers were enslaved Black women, who were often forced to take care of the White children of their enslavers (Vogtman, 2017). While there is wider acknowledgement that child care plays an important role in ensuring high-quality learning experience for children and holding up our economy nowadays, the carly care and education (ECE) workforce—which is made up of mostly women, and disproportionately women of color and immigrant women—continues to be one of the lowest-paid and undervalued occupations nationwide (McLean et al., 2021).

The historical roots of the child care field and the current make-up of the workforce necessitate a critical-racial lens for studies of the ECE workforce. Earlier work on the ECE workforce has documented how racial/ethnic disparities are reflected in job role distribution (Author, 2023; Austin et al., 2019) and wage gaps (Author, 2023; Austin et al., 2019; Ullrich, 2016). Extending this line of work, this paper examines racial/ethnic disparities in early educator compensation and representation across job types, and the way educational credentials and program funding intersect with these patterns.

Data and methods
The study is based on California-wide representative samples of approximately 2,000 center administrators and 3,000 home-based family child care (FCC) providers, as well as a non-probability sample of about 2,500 center-based teaching staff members. For this paper, we examine the pervasiveness of racism in the ECE field – from racial representations across job roles and access to education, to racial disparities in compensation, focusing on four provider types: FCC providers, center directors, center-based lead teachers, and center-based assistant teachers or teacher aides. Our analyses involve four racial and ethnic groups: Asian, Black and White educators who report being only one race and are not Latina, and Latina of any race. All analyses are weighted to reflect population-level distributions for region, infant/toddler license, and center funding to adjust for unequal response rates.

Results and significance
Preliminary results show there are variations in racial/ethnic representation across provider types. For example, Black women tend to be over-represented in FCC programs than in other roles. White educators, on the contrary, were more likely to serve in center director jobs (54%), compared to other racial/ethnic groups. In terms of median hourly wages, Black and Latina educators earned consistently lower wages than Asian or White educators across job roles. For example, wage gaps translate to $7,700 less per year for Latina directors and $3,600 less per year for Black directors, when compared to annual earnings of Asian or White directors.

Disparate representation of educators in leadership roles and wage gaps could not be explained fully by education levels or program type/funding. We discuss how race/racism operates within and across multiple domains of the ECE structure and provide policy recommendations on dismantling racist structures within the system.

Authors

• Yoonjeon Kim, University of California - Berkeley

• Lea J.E. Austin, University of California - Berkeley