Military Spouse Unemployment Begins with Child Care

BY KAYLA CORBITT

You may have heard the age-old adage, “What came first? The chicken or the egg?” Military life holds many conundrums that follow this double-edged riddle. An example of this is that military families cannot qualify for child care fee assistance unless both parents work/attend school fulltime. The challenge being they cannot afford to work without fee assistance.

“The military systemically relies upon historically gendered traditions to keep the military machine moving forward,” wrote Jennifer Barnhill , writer and advocate in an OpEd for military.com. Accessibility and affordability have been issues in the military community since the beginning of our all-volunteer force. The most extensive gendered tradition is military spouses serve by maintaining the house and children. Outsourcing responsibilities to alleviate the physical, mental and emotional demands of household duties is possible. Still, it would require a secondary income to cover the costs of outsourcing child care. For many military families, this option feels financially unobtainable.

“I was denied the fee assistance, I need to have 30 hours of paid work a week, and I only have 29,” said a Navy spouse who contacted Operation Child Care (OCC). She was anticipating being able to finally return to work as a teacher’s aide and was initially approved for fee assistance until it was discovered she was one hour short. Without fee assistance, she reported child care for one child would cost her an entire paycheck.

“In terms of what we found; spouse unemployment has always been sort of the highlight of this survey. We found a 21% spouse unemployment rate, which the good news is it is statistically unchanged back to 2015…” said Dr. Paul Rosenfeld, Director of the Center for Retention and Readiness, regarding the 2021 Active Duty Spouse Survey (ADSS) results when he appeared on The Spouse Angle podcast

Millions of dollars in federal funding have been spent on employment events including hiring fairs, resume workshops and even business-wear fashion shows. All helpful initiatives, but ones that dance around a core issue, child care.

Military fee assistance has been set up very similarly to that of its civilian counterpart, statesubsidized child care . States have a multitude of eligibility requirements requirements like income, employment, residence and provider stipulations. Once these items are navigated, an applicant is invited to join a waitlist for assistance. However, the military lifestyle is not comparable to civilian life. Military families do not have local support networks, often incur debt with relocation and conduct a complete reset of their lives every few years. Military spouses also are relied upon to pick up the slack during these times of transition, often unpaid. The reliance on military spouses to solve the issues placed upon them while carrying a backpack full of other responsibilities is not sustainable.

COVID-19 has moved child care from an issue faced by some military families to a crisis experienced by all. And yet, child care fee assistance is not an entitlement for families. Arguments against making this an entitlement point to paying a service member for something the majority do not use. The same could be said of the Basic Allowance for Housing, Clothing Allowance and Basic Allowance for Subsistence. These payments assume the need to care for the service member but do not fully extend to the need to care for the service member’s family.

If we want to fix military spouse employment we need to fix child care. It’s time our child care policies reflected our community.

Kayla Corbitt

is the

Founder of Operation Child Care

Military

and a

Child Care

Advocate.

Kayla works with DoDaffiliated families and advocacy organizations to reduce the burden that the lack of child care access has on the military community. Operation Child Care supports our troops by supporting their families through advocacy, programming and support.