The conversation about family policy and the economy so often revolves around the overall labor force participation rate of mothers. This may be one valid lens, but not all occupations are created equal. A new analysis by labor economist and Capita Senior Fellow Kathryn Anne Edwards demonstrates that family policy is immensely important for American society—and has powerful ripple effects throughout the economy—because parents of young children are concentrated in occupations that keep the U.S. healthy, safe, and connected. (While all parents rely on family policy, we initially focus on parents with young children due to the acute needs of that age band.)

Edwards examined how parents with children under the age of six are distributed across different jobs. She found that the top three occupational categories in which these parents are significantly overrepresented are health care, construction, and protective services (such as police and fire). Whereas the average share of parents with young children in all occupations is around 14 percent, 17 percent of construction and protective services jobs—and nearly one in five health care jobs—are held by these parents.

Health care. Construction. Protective services. It’s hard to think of three job categories upon which Americans depend more. Construction drives housing supply, energy capacity, and even national security, insofar as it supports domestic production of semiconductors and other critical industries. It is widely understood as a sector with a multiplier effect. Similarly, health care is an indispensable and growing sector—accounting for nearly half of all job growth in 2025—and its importance will only increase as America ages. And it hardly needs to be explained why well-staffed protective services matter to everyone, whether or not they have young children.

This isn’t a narrative we often hear. As Edwards says in her data analysis:

Looking at how parents are distributed across the labor force shows that many of America’s most important occupations are shaped by family policy—or exposed to its absence.

If our policies support the quality, stability, and predictability of family life—reducing chaos and chronic stress, improving the strength of marriages and of parent-child relationships—then the people in these important jobs will be more able to bring their full selves and thrive as humans at the hospital, fire station, or construction site as well as at home. In turn, families are disproportionately exposed, for good or ill, to the state and working conditions of those occupations.

These two-way implications loom particularly large as police and fire departments, as well as health care providers, face high rates of absenteeism alongside recruitment and retention challenges, while construction continues to experience persistent labor shortages.

This is why it is so important to take a family lens on labor policy. There is, of course, a child care story here—these occupations are highly vulnerable to child care breakdowns. And, as Edwards points out, there are occupations that might have a higher concentration of parents (mothers, in particular) if the U.S. had a better child care system. But that is not the only story here. Edwards’ analysis shows the well-being of millions upon millions of families with young children also depends on job quality in certain industries. Wages, benefits, scheduling control, and working conditions: all of these profoundly shape family flourishing and even whether they form families in the first place. 

Thus, the policy focus should be broadened to look beyond the aggregate numbers. Issues like compensation disparities between different sectoral jobs (for example, home health aides vs. nurses; pediatricians and primary care physicians vs. specialists; or EMTs vs. firefighters), union access, paid leave availability, and more all bear down on the financial stability of families with young children, families who face a particular set of challenges due to their life stage. 

These issues also shape families’ child care needs and options. And the effects of public policy—such as the recently passed budget reconciliation package, which is projected to cause substantial numbers of people to lose their Medicaid and SNAP benefits—can be viewed through a similar lens: How many parents in essential jobs will suffer a blow? Job quality, when viewed through the lens of families, can create a positive or negative feedback loop for the economy, the health and well-being of communities, and potentially even the nation’s future.

It’s past time we paid attention not just to headline job numbers or abstract occupational projections, but to where America’s parents of young children actually work and what their working lives are like. This analysis is just the first step in starting that vital conversation.