Unemployment has been historically low but as data released by the ABS today shows, there are lots of people who want a job but are missing out because they need to care for their children.

The ABS released Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation. It shows 213,000 people want a job but are unavailable to start work.

What are the main reasons they’re unavailable? For both women and men, the main reason was because they have to care for children. 58% of women nominated caring for children as a reason they could start work. For men it was 43%.

More high quality, affordable, and available early childhood education and care would help tens of thousands of people gain access to employment. This would not only be great for these people but would also come with huge economic benefits for Australia.

A big barrier to this is not just affordability but also availability. This is why the Australia Institute proposes that early childhood education and care should be offered in the same way as school education. You can read more about how to fix our broken childcare system here.