Changes in Early Educators’ Financial and Emotional Wellbeing after COVID-19: Variability by Setting

• In Event: Towards Health Equity: Examining Disparities in Early Childhood Educators’ Well-Being and Working Conditions

Abstract

The early educators who care for and work with children aged zero to five serve as both essential developmental supports and the backbone of a system that allows young families to flourish (Phillips et al., 2016; Whitebook et al., 2014). Despite their important role, teachers and caregivers in early care and education (ECE) settings have historically earned very low wages, experienced correspondingly low levels of emotional and financial wellbeing, and turned over at high rates (Bassok et al., 2021; McLean et al., 2021). This reality has negative implications for both families who need stable care and children’s development (Buettner et al., 2016; Jeon et al., 2014, 2019; Tran & Winsler, 2011).

COVID-19 exacerbated challenges faced by early educators (Weiland et al., 2021): the workforce shrunk substantially in early 2020 and remains about 10% smaller than pre-COVID. For policymakers hoping to develop supports for this workforce, it is important to understand how the wellbeing of early educators has changed in the wake of COVID to both effectively target policies and make the case for new and substantial investments. While there are several studies exploring wellbeing at either a single post-pandemic timepoint or at repeated post-pandemic cross sections, there is very little longitudinal data able to show shifts in emotional and financial wellbeing (Markowitz & Bassok, 2022).

This study uses longitudinal data from ~400 lead teachers who were continuously employed in a child care center or school providing preschool in Virginia from 2019-2022 to address this gap. Surveys were administered annually in 26 communities participating in Virginia’s Preschool Development Grant during the spring/summer (response rates ~60%-70%). Communities were similar to Virginia as a whole in terms of race/ethnicity, though had lower median household incomes. The present study uses these data to ask how wages, financial wellbeing, and emotional wellbeing changed from 2019-2022, and whether these changes vary by ECE setting (e.g., child care centers versus schools).

Table 1 presents mean wages and financial wellbeing by setting. Between 2019 and 2022 ECE teacher wages increased across both child care and school sites, but in 2022, child care teachers made $17 an hour compared to $27 for school-based teachers. Across all indicators child care teachers had correspondingly lower levels of financial wellbeing as indicated by higher levels of food insecurity, financial worries, and inability to afford essentials. Child care teachers’ financial wellbeing decreased between 2019 and 2022, whereas financial wellbeing was largely constant for teachers in school settings. In contrast, Figure 1 shows that the proportion of teachers at risk for depression increased across both setting types from 2019 to 2022.

Next steps include rigorous statistical tests, including accounting for regional variability and conducting within-person analyses to better isolate time trends, as well as conducting significance tests across ECE settings. Such analyses will provide information about how the wellbeing of early educators has shifted in the wake of COVID-19, help policymakers understand the likely implications for workforce stability, and guide policy changes designed to support and expand this essential workforce.

Authors

• Anna Markowitz, University of California - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author

• Isabelle Fares

• Daphna Bassok, University of Virginia