According to the Boston Business Journal, a recent report accumulated by Harvard’s research collaborative, Project on Workforce, attributes the shortage of nurses and healthcare professionals in Massachusetts hospitals to complications brought on by the pandemic. The journal categorizes the majority of healthcare workers as women, people of color, and immigrants. This suggests that other pandemic-related disruptions such as childcare shortages, which particularly affect these healthcare workers, are also factors that possibly play a role in workplace turnover. Dr. Alicia Sasser Modestino (Associate Professor of Public Policy, Urban Affairs and Economics, Director of Research at the Dukakis Center, and WGSS Executive Committee member) comments on this subject:
“Childcare is a critical piece of our economic infrastructure that enables parents to get to work just like roads and bridges do for commuters.”
Dr. Alicia Sasser Modestino
She states that COVD-19 has created an “invisible link” between childcare and the economy, causing employers to think strategically about how to support working parents. Read more here.
