Every morning, when Trudi and Ben Shertzer head to their jobs at the Pittsburgh International Airport, they drop their son Hunter off at a brightly colored child care facility located in a converted flight terminal just a few minutes from the main entrance. Teachers at the child care center take care of their 2-year-old while Trudi works as an airport operations manager handling all things safety and Ben manages wildlife around the 8,000-acre airline property, from removing roadkill on runways to taking care of the dozens of honeybee colonies on the grounds.

“We were trying to find day cares prior to the airport center’s opening and I think the closest one we could possibly get into was at least another six-month wait,” Ben said. “We were on the waiting list for three other facilities and the panic really started to set in.”

From the outside, the day care, which opened in late 2023 and offers discounted rates, feels like any other. Teachers crawl around on rugs with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers — reading books, singing songs, and doing crafts. But subtle reminders of its unique location are everywhere. The center gets visits from the “PIT Paws” therapy dogs that normally help anxious travelers relax before their flights. Out back, a small playground offers a clear view of airplanes taking off and landing. And alongside their traditional ABCs, the children here learn a different alphabet: Alfa, Bravo, Charlie — the language of aviation.

The airport is located about 20 miles from downtown, and the Shertzers love knowing they can easily say hi during the day or assist their son if needed. “We’re not driving 15–20 minutes out of our way to and from day care, we’re not worrying about traffic or leaving work at the exact right time,” Ben said. “It really does make everything a lot simpler.”

Seventy percent of children under age 6 have both parents in the workforce, and roughly one-third of Americans are raising kids. Yet only 12 percent of American workers have access to any child care assistance through their employer. Even fewer have access to on-site child care like the Shertzers, with most employers fearing liability or judging the cost of building and managing a facility to be too expensive.

Across red and blue states, leaders from a growing movement have been working to change that, arguing that investing in child care is a sound business decision, and often the missing piece to making a workplace functional. But the idea of expanding employer child care has divided advocates, some of whom worry it will push the US further toward being a country of haves and have-nots while abandoning the broader fight for universal support.

No longer a “nice to have”

For decades, employer-provided child care was viewed largely as a C-Suite perk — more comparable to fertility treatment than health insurance. This perception existed partly because federal tax incentives for child care benefits were so inadequate that only the largest, wealthiest companies could offer them.

But this “nice-to-have” mindset fundamentally shifted in the pandemic, when school closures forced frontline workers into impossible choices between their jobs and their kids. It’s now the health care and hospitality industries, retail and manufacturing sectors, public safety agencies and airports like Pittsburgh International that are forging the way on employer child care. After Covid-19, leaders in these fields are more clear-eyed that their businesses simply can’t operate in the same way as remote workplaces.

Put differently, for some employers, addressing child care has become a business imperative. “We don’t run an airport from your living room, the people who work here work physically on-site, whether it’s the baggage handlers or wheelchair runners or any of our food and beverage and retail partners,” said Christina Cassotis, the CEO of the Pittsburgh airport.

Cassotis and other business leaders have found that child care costs can directly impact their ability to hire. Bill Stritzler, the managing director of Smugglers’ Notch ski resort in Vermont, says his company was having trouble recruiting staff and the lack of affordable child care was a recurring issue that job applicants brought up. “The numbers were pretty clear to us,” he told Vox. “If we are talking about typically $20–$22 an hour jobs, and if child care is $15 an hour, by the time you paid that, you didn’t have enough money to drive to work.”

When Smugglers’ Notch started offering free child care on-site in 2022, leaders were initially concerned that employees without children might feel resentful. “Turns out we didn’t need to worry about that,” Stritzler said. “The managers who are now able to actually hire people were delighted, and we also got feedback from those who couldn’t take advantage that they appreciated working for a company that was willing to provide this kind of benefit.”

Not all employer-sponsored child care means having a space for kids right on the premises.

“I think part of the change is really breaking the myth that child care benefits means on-site or nothing,” said Sadie Funk, the director of the Best Place for Working Parents, a national network that advocates for pro-family business policies. “There are other ways to provide the kind of flexibility and predictability that helps working parents get their needs met.” One increasingly popular route is through subsidies for backup care, meaning emergency coverage when an employee’s usual arrangement falls through.

Dan Figurski, president of KinderCare for Employers, said many companies want to offer hybrid options, with a mix of on-site care for those days spent in-office and back-up babysitters and access to child care programs when working remotely. Today, KinderCare works with 700 businesses, up from 400 in 2019.

“This isn’t charitable, this is about making our business........

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