In early August we (the parents) hope to hear Ontario’s school boards’ plans for the upcoming school year. I (the labour economist) wanted to get a picture of how much this is connected to our labour market.

1. In Feb 2020 there were 1.3 million women with kids under 18 in Ontario who were at work (employed and not absent). That’s about 40% of all ON women at work. Add in a few single working dads for a sense of how many families.

1b. If you think in terms of the total work done (aggregate hours worked), the moms with kids under 18 in Ontario are doing about 15% of all the work (men and women) in the paid labour market.

2. In April 2020, nearly 30% of the working moms with kids under 18 left work. By June, 16% were still away from work. (ie. more than 1/2 of those who lost their jobs were still not working).

3. September plans matter most for those with school aged kids under 12. Here’s a sense of their recovery in ON. In April, hours fell for moms with kids 6-12 by 30% relative to Feb. In June, 33%. It looks like it might be getting worse.

3b. As reference, this is a replication of my coauthor @mikalskuterud ’s graph for Canada. At a national level, moms with kids 6-12 are struggling more than other moms, but better than ON.

3c. We talked about this in a recent @CDHoweInstitute memo: The moms are not all right https://www.cdhowe.org/intelligence-memos/schirle-skuterud-–-moms-are-not-all-right

4. So June LFS figures might be a good benchmark for thinking about how many moms might not make it back to work if kids don’t get to school FT. But I think we have to add at least a few - many working moms did not view this juggling act as sustainable.

5. Sidenote: I’d like to break this down for more provinces, but sample sizes get small fast. Not today

6. Also, here’s the ON page on reopening schools. https://www.ontario.ca/page/approach-reopening-schools-2020-2021-school-year

7. Anyways, here’s the thing to think about: if about 15% of your workforce needs some really fundamental infrastructure to get to work everyday, it seems worth investing in that? (And then there’s the simple fact that kids have the right to an education, #justsayin)