Child Care: It’s Good Business
Several weeks ago the first on-site day care center in an industrial park in Orange County was opened by the Birtcher family in its newest development, the Orange County Technology Center in Santa Ana.
It’s an opening that deserves to be noted--and duplicated--by other business firms in the county.
The critical need for more child care facilities for working parents has been disturbingly evident in Orange County for several years.
Single parents and married couples often have been putting disproportionate shares of their income into day care, when they could find it. But that care, at any price, is too often unavailable.
The latest estimate puts the county’s shortage of new child care spaces for children 5 and under at 24,700 by the end of next year.
And the need continues to grow. Researchers estimate that by 1990 six out of every 10 mothers (single or married) with children under age 3 will be working.
Nine days ago representatives from about 100 county business firms gathered in Irvine to explore the problem: that despite the dramatic increase in the number of companies providing some form of day care assistance, it is still being largely ignored.
The problem is becoming so acute that Yorba Linda earlier this year was considering a law that would require large companies locating in the city to provide day care for employees’ children.
That is precisely what the Birtcher development firm did voluntarily in Santa Ana, recognizing that opening a day care center for employees was good business.
Too many business executives fail to understand that the need for child day care involves all employees, male and female. And that the lack of child care can directly affect performance and profits.
When child care is provided, lateness, absenteeism, turnover and job stress can be significantly reduced, and productivity and morale increased.
Its availability is becoming a vital community ingredient, like affordable housing, in attracting a young labor force and new business firms.
The City of Irvine is planning a child care center for city employees and the public at the new civic center complex, and American Savings plans to open one in La Habra early next year.
That new center, similar to one it operates in Stockton, is also expected to qualify for liability insurance at reasonable rates.
Company involvement in child care could take many forms, from directly running child care programs to subsidizing employees’ child care costs in or out of the home. Whatever form it takes, more companies should provide assistance.
Aside from the social significance, it’s simply good business.
