On-site child care has huge potential to level the playing field between women and men. But that’s only one reason more companies should offer it

Over the weekend, I was listening to an interview with actor Rhea Perlman on Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s podcast, Wiser Than Me. (Awesome job, Lemonada Media ) Perlman—who you may have seen recently on the big screen playing Barbie inventor Ruth Handler—rose to fame as Carla, the oft-pregnant head waitress on the TV sitcom Cheers. In the interview, Perlman explained that in the mid-1980s, when she was on the set of Cheers and when all three of her kids were born, Paramount had on-site child care for all employees who worked on the lot.?

I was curious to learn more about that. I dug into 纽约时报 ' archive and discovered that in 1985, as part of his contract negotiations, Gary David Goldberg—who produced Family Ties and Spin City—told Paramount that they needed to establish a day-care center on the lot. So they did.

Why, you ask, is a 1980s contract negotiation relevant to my platform about getting more women to the top of corporate leadership? You know why. Because 40-odd years later, even in heterosexual households where both partners work and earn roughly the same amount of money, women handle more of the child care and the housework. According to a 2023 Pew study, “The only marriage type where husbands devote more time to caregiving than their wives is one in which the wife is the sole breadwinner. In those marriages, wives and husbands spend roughly the same amount of time per week on household chores.”

Yes, we have made progress. But, as a society, we are still trying to solve the simultaneous equation of work and family. Finding quality, affordable, and dependable child care is one of the biggest impediments to gender parity in leadership.?

If we want to continue on the road to progress, companies would be wise to look again (or for the first time) at on-site child care. As a 2020 report by Harvard fellow Audrey Latura explains, on-site child care tends to be open for longer hours compared with conventional child care. That’s why it may “provide normative advantages to women who wish to pursue longer-hours careers with an eye towards management when they have, or are thinking about having, children.” In other words, for those who want to make it to the top, and are willing to put in the long hours to do so, on-site child care could be a game changer. It’s also a fantastic tool for recruiting and retaining talent. ?

Employees know that the lack of on-site child care is holding them back, and they want it. As The Center for American Progress reported: "In March 2019, a group of mothers working for Amazon—known as ‘Momazonians’—organized an information-gathering and advocacy campaign that urged the company to provide a backup child care benefit. The group of nearly 2,000 Amazon employees with young children argues that a lack of affordable child care has prevented talented women from progressing in their careers."

As of last year, only 6% of U.S. companies provided child care either on-site or near their workplaces, according to a 2022 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management.?

I am never one to speak in absolutes—unless we are talking about my love of the color pink. So, do I think on-site child care is the only solution to the child care quandary? No. But I definitely think that it is an undervalued option that has huge potential to level the playing field between women and men.?

If employees could opt for a high-quality, close-proximity, affordable, and dependable childcare as easily as they can sign up for their annual FSA benefit, they would be liberated to spend more time focusing on their personal and professional growth instead of juggling deadlines with pick-up times.?

It’s not rocket science. It’s on-site child care.

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