The COVID-19 pandemic has upended in-person public education across the United States, a critical infrastructure of care that parents—especially mothers—depend on to work. To understand the nature and magnitude of school closures across states, we collected detailed primary data—the Elementary School Operating Status database (ESOS)—to measure the percentage of school districts offering in-person, remote, and hybrid instruction models for elementary schools by state in September 2020. We link these data to the Current Population Survey to evaluate the association between school reopening and parents’ labor force participation rates, comparing 2020 labor force participation rates to those observed prepandemic in 2019. We find that, across states, the maternal labor force participation rate fell to a greater extent than that of fathers. In 2019, mothers’ rate of labor force participation was about 18 percentage points lower than fathers’. By 2020, this gap grew by 5 percentage points in states where schools offered primarily remote instruction. We show that schools are a vital source of care for young children, and that without in-person instruction, mothers have been sidelined from the labor force. The longer these conditions remain in place, the more difficult it may be for mothers to fully recover from prolonged spells of nonemployment, resulting in reduced occupational opportunities and lifetime earnings.

COVID-19大流行改变了全美的面对面公众教育，这是父母（尤其是母亲）赖以工作的重要照料基础设施。为了了解各州关闭学校的性质和规模，我们收集了详细的主要数据-小学运营状况数据库（ESOS）-衡量了按比例提供小学亲自，远程和混合教学模式的学区的百分比，州2020年的劳动力参与率。我们将这些数据与当前人口调查相链接，以评估学校重新开放与父母的劳动力参与率之间的关联，并将2020年的劳动力参与率与2019年大流行期间的比例进行比较。我们发现，在各州之间，孕产妇劳动力参与率的下降幅度大于父亲。在2019年 母亲的劳动力参与率比父亲低约18个百分点。到2020年，在学校主要提供远程教学的州，这一差距增加了5个百分点。我们表明，学校是幼儿保育的重要来源，没有亲身指导，母亲就被劳动力淘汰了。这些条件持续的时间越长，母亲从长期失业中完全康复的难度就越大，从而导致职业机会和终身收入的减少。在没有亲自指导的情况下，母亲已被劳动力淘汰。这些条件持续的时间越长，母亲从长期失业中完全康复的难度就越大，从而导致职业机会和终身收入的减少。在没有亲自指导的情况下，母亲已被劳动力淘汰。这些条件持续的时间越长，母亲从长期失业中完全康复的难度就越大，从而导致职业机会和终身收入的减少。