After attending class at Hunter College, Kamila Espinosa rushes home. Her 2-year-old niece waits eagerly for her to return, and Espinosa worries about the toddler crying in her absence. When she arrives, her niece is at the front door.
In lieu of attending evening classes, Espinosa and her mother look after the toddler while her parents are at work. Espinosa bathes, clothes, and feeds her. Changes her diapers and does her hair. Occasionally, Espinosa will try to do homework, but her niece craves attention. She will try to “help” her aunt by pressing random keys on Espinosa’s laptop. To keep her niece occupied, Espinosa gives her a tablet to watch shows on.
“Even though I love my niece to death, it's somewhat stressful taking care of a kid while taking classes,” Espinosa says. She’s had to miss key parts of her college experience, including lectures.
With her mother, Espinosa takes care of her niece when her cousin and her cousin’s husband are not available and pre-school is not in session. With the costs of private daycare becoming too high for parents to bear and public assistance remaining out of reach, Espinosa has become their go-to person for childcare.
Her experience reflects that of many women in college who shoulder the responsibilities of caregiving while pursuing their degrees. Though political discussion on childcare often focuses on working mothers, women without children of their own are also often made responsible for caregiving, when daycare and after-school programs are not viable options. These women care for younger siblings, cousins, nieces, and nephews. This can take a toll on the educations and mental health of female students, as they struggle to balance the demands placed upon them.
Some may miss a couple classes here and there. Many others drop out due to the pressure. According to a report by the National Student Clearinghouse Center, female students at four-year universities and community colleges opted out of the fall 2022 semester at more than twice the rate of male students. Catherine Brown, senior policy director of the National College Attainment Network, argues that this disparity occurs because women are more likely to be assigned or take up the responsibility of caring for children, parents and those with health ailments in their homes.
The barriers to accessing childcare and the increase in childcare “deserts” in New York City exacerbates this issue, disproportionately affecting working-class students. Sixty percent of city residents live in childcare deserts, meaning that there are more children than there are spots available. During the pandemic, 400 centers closed in the first year alone, as the city neglected to fund its childcare providers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 100,000 fewer childcare workers in America than before the pandemic.
When families are able to find a provider, the price is often more than they can reasonably afford.
“We did have her in childcare but it was so incredibly expensive that we were like, there's no way that we could keep this up,” said S.N., a 22-year-old graduate of Hunter College, who cared for her now-8-year-old sister while working toward her degree. To protect her privacy, S.N. requested to be identified by her initials only.
S.N.’s sister was born when S.N. was 14. For 10 months, her mother stayed home to care for the baby until her employer threatened to fire her if she did not return. Since then, S.N. and her older brother have been responsible for providing care for their younger sister when their parents had to work. Her older brother helped, but most of the responsibility fell to her. “Obviously, my mom is going to say ‘You’re a girl, and you can take better care of her,’” S.N. said.
The idea that women and girls are innately suited for providing care influences the division of domestic labor at a national scale. According to a Pew Research Center study on working parents during the pandemic, mothers were about twice as likely as fathers to report that they had a lot of childcare duties while working at home. They were also more likely to report reducing their work hours to perform such duties.
When working mothers can not sacrifice hours, childcare responsibilities may be assigned to other women in the family. To mitigate the challenges of balancing work and family life, women often depend on childcare programs. But when S.N.’s family tried to obtain government assistance, they were denied. “We don’t qualify for any sort of public assistance because both of my parents work,” S.N. said.
The average cost of childcare ranges from $10,000 to $19,000 per year. The city’s Department of Education (DOE) and Administration of Children’s Services (ACS) offer vouchers for parents to send their kids to daycare at a discount or for free, but these vouchers can be difficult to obtain. A family may be deemed ineligible if their annual household income is greater than three times the federal poverty level–for a family of four, that would amount to more than $83,268, according to the city’s income eligibility table.
Or they may qualify but the application process is so strenuous that parents give up. The New York State Executive Budget for fiscal year 2024 estimates that at least 83,400 families who qualify for aid do not receive it.
“Every resource that is means-tested is under utilized,” said Marina Marcou O’Malley, the policy and operations director at Alliance for Quality of Education. “There are many families who are eligible who will meet the income threshold for assistance but don’t know that.” Marcou O’Malley added that even if a family does know they qualify, it is “a very cumbersome, very difficult” process. “You have to have a job with specific hours. You have to show what your income is,” she said.
For single parents, it can be difficult to keep up with this process, while also holding a job and caring for their families.
Marcou O’Malley notes that the government also requires that recipients give proof of citizenship, which excludes asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants. “That’s really problematic because our economy actually depends on those parents working,” she said.
Non-profit and advocacy organizations such as Alliance for Quality of Education are advocating for universal childcare. Universal childcare means that the state would make childcare free and accessible to every family, without requiring proof of eligibility.
In the February preliminary state budget, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul proposes raising the household income limit by making childcare subsidies available to families who make up to $93,000. According to the Governor’s estimates, this initiative would make childcare available to 113,000 more children.
However, advocates for universal child care argue that just raising the income threshold will not get rid of the barriers presented by needing to prove eligibility. Further, they note that increasing the number of families who qualify, requires the state to increase the number of seats available, through funding childcare centers and hiring more workers.
The City University of New York offers childcare centers on many of its campuses, but seats are limited. Only students and faculty members who are parents themselves are eligible, not students who are taking care of siblings or other children in their family. This places student caretakers, who tend to be women, at greater risk of disruption to their education and mental wellbeing than their classmates.
This was the case for Nyya Collins, a 23-year-old graduate of City Tech and Hunter College.
Alongside her grandmother and her mother, Collins cared for her two nieces, two nephews and younger brother. Instead of doing her homework, she would prepare food, make sure they did their homework and put them to bed.
Collins struggled with managing her anxiety and depression, while trying to complete her education and ensure the wellness of five kids. “There is not a single moment when the house is calm,” Collins said.
To avoid being at home, Collins would sometimes stay in the library until closing time, 10 pm. She became familiar with the jingle of keys, signaling that she had to go. For relief and to the upset of her family, Collins left home to live with her godmother in New Jersey for one semester during her third-year in college. “School was always important to me,” Collins said. “I just became very anxious. I hated being home.”
For others, caregiving responsibilities mean forgoing opportunities. “In my [high] school they offered AP physics and that was the last period of the day, but I could not make it to the last period of the day,” S.N. said. So her dad could leave for work, S.N. would rush home to watch her sister, until her mother returned home. Depending on her mother’s work schedule, S.N. would watch her sister for about three to seven hours. This dynamic persisted into college, as S.N. had to decide between avoiding extracurriculars or bringing her sister with her.
To improve families’ access to childcare, advocacy groups continue to pressure Governor Hochul to eliminate means-testing and invest in the childcare workforce.
“The governor has talked a lot about childcare as a mom,” said Marcou O’Malley. “When she started out, she was a young mom and she had her own childcare issues, and she has a daughter who has kids. So she's very understanding. But her proposals are not on par with her words.”
Until Hochul invests more of the state budget in childcare, access to it will remain out of reach for thousands of New York City families. In the meantime, the educations and mental health of women in college are at risk.