The Economically Detrimental Cost of Childcare

[SunriseChampion]

I went to visit my younger sister and her husband earlier this evening. They have a 2ish year old child and she's pregnant with another. She works as an ECE at a daycare in west Durham and their child goes there as well so they're entitled to a 20% employee discount and the price is still 1200$/mth.
ECEs' pay is rather low (under 20$/hr) and so, with the other one on the way, my sister has decided that it is cheaper to not work for the few years until the children are in school than it is to continue working during this time as the cost of childcare would mean that she'd effectively be working for free or, even for negative pay.

This will take her out of the workforce for the next four years.

Four years.

The child benefit is a joke except for those who are least able to support children (the poor) in that it does almost nothing to offset the cost of childcare if you're making anything above minimum wage.

How is it more economically beneficial to be taking able-bodied and capable people out of the workforce instead of having childcare be a nationally-subsidised programme?

Which system would truly cost society more?

I'm no expert, but it seems ass-backward to me.

 

[Northern Light]

I went to visit my younger sister and her husband earlier this evening. They have a 2ish year old child and she's pregnant with another. She works as an ECE at a daycare in west Durham and their child goes there as well so they're entitled to a 20% employee discount and the price is still 1200$/mth.
ECEs' pay is rather low (under 20$/hr) and so, with the other one on the way, my sister has decided that it is cheaper to not work for the few years until the children are in school than it is to continue working during this time as the cost of childcare would mean that she'd effectively be working for free or, even for negative pay.

This will take her out of the workforce for the next four years.

Four years.

The child benefit is a joke except for those who are least able to support children (the poor) in that it does almost nothing to offset the cost of childcare if you're making anything above minimum wage.

How is it more economically beneficial to be taking able-bodied and capable people out of the workforce instead of having childcare be a nationally-subsidised programme?

Which system would truly cost society more?

I'm no expert, but it seems ass-backward to me.

You're not wrong; though I think the issues are a bit more complex and nuanced.

As with anything where mass affordability is a concern (see housing), low-wages are very much a part of the concern.

If minimum wage and presumably those wages of person making a modest premium thereto, we're raised by an average of $5 per hour (so that minimum was $19 per hour), presumably your sister would then be making something over $20, that would partially address this issue.

A second area is differentiating the cost of different childcare at different ages.

Childcare is most expensive for infants, followed by toddlers; it is still expensive for school-age children, but considerably cheaper.

This poses a series of very real issues around whether the social value is greater in having a parent stay home, particularly if there are multiple young children vs childcare.

I certainly don't think that should be imposed on any family; but I do think it shouldn't be discounted as an option for those families that wish it.

The infant stage is mostly addressed by existing Parental Leave programs; however, those same programs provide fairly low income replacement at 55%, and as low as 33% if you select the 18 month option.

It also excludes many part-timers from coverage all together, excepting Quebec which runs a more accessible program.

So we might start by addressing parental leave; reducing barriers to part-timers, and increasing income replacement to 100% for six months, 75% for 1 year and 50% for those than take 18 months.

From there, we could endeavour to emulate the Quebec program. ($15 per day, universal childcare)

However, this program is very expensive and in Quebec, it doesn't actually serve every child (wait lists and spot shortages remain an issue)

Having a national program that set a much higher per-day rate, but one well below current market-value; and then allowing provinces to add as much as they want to the federal contribution in order to lower the price might be workable.

ie. A federal contribution that makes $30 per daycare universal; and then allows any province to add more money to drive down the day rate as low as they wish).

In the context of many things that unaffordable to many people I wouldn't personally put daycare the top of my list of things to fix (though I do agree its important); I would like to see medical care issues addressed first though, beginning with prescription drugs and mental healthcare and on to dental and making sure everyone who needs them can afford eye glasses or other medical devices).

But by all means daycare should be on the list of things to address.

But it will require a national determination to raise taxes; and one to drop the amount of corporate welfare on the go, to prioritize these greater needs.

 

[Videodrome]

Our two youngest kids are in daycare and subsidy really helps out. Even just before and after care is expensive. Thankfully, our oldest is past the need for it.

 

[TheKingEast]

It IS ass backwards. I can go on for days about how ass backwards our country is.

Quebec has it right.

 

[Admiral Beez]

IHow is it more economically beneficial to be taking able-bodied and capable people out of the workforce instead of having childcare be a nationally-subsidised programme?

It's different for every family. Our twins were born in the early 2000s. We looked at the cost of daycare and to be honest, considered the thought of only seeing our children briefly in the AM and PM, and we came to the conclusion that it wasn't for us. But we couldn't make it work on just my salary, so I got to work on a solution..... I do love a project. We kept the house in Cabbagetown and I found a higher paying job in a much cheaper place in the country (Fredericton, NB), and with some family help we bought a house there and rented out the Toronto house to pay the bills. Once I found a higher paying job in TO, we moved back to Toronto in the mid 2000s to enroll the kids in the local school. My wife stayed out of the workforce with the kids for eight years before returning to her old employer - we didn't cost the system anything beyond the usual child tax benefits. It was a heck of a struggle at times, but it worked for us. I think a lot of GTA residents forget that this is a massive country with different career and family options that are often more feasible than in the GTA.

I think a big risk "taking able-bodied and capable people out of the workforce" is the career and financial power women lose. With 50% of marriages failing, women can't trust that their male provider will always be around, and meanwhile an extended absence from the workforce can set a women's earning potential back by decades. Again, my situation is different but also rarer, in that we've been together since 1992, married since 1998.

 

[TheKingEast]

So I’ve been in the market for childcare. It certainly is pricey if you want your kid to actually learn something and not sit around and draw all day.

Markham and Richmond hill “high end” daycares around 1200/month. Montessori cheapest I found was 1800.

These are mortgage payments.

I think childcare should be free or drastically reduced just like Quebec. Invest in our children.

 

[Towered]

It's simply ridiculous in Ontario. My partner has no choice but to stay home with the kids because child care is totally unaffordable here. She could work part time, but all that income would just be sucked up by the unreasonable child care costs, so there would be no net gain, and then she'd not be spending time with the kids either, so where's the incentive?

Quebec is doing it right. That should be the model for the rest of Canada.

 

[Northern Light]

While I value what Quebec has accomplished; and I recognize the need to reduce childcare costs; its important to understand the size of Quebec's undertaking, and its limitations.

The Atlantic did a piece looking at this 2 years ago.

The rate structure has since been returned to a flat-rate from the sliding scale.

When ‘Universal’ Child Care Isn’t Universally High-Quality

Quebec made up for shortages in its day-care system by letting private centers step in—and different families are getting very different experiences.

www.theatlantic.com

Also important to remember, Quebec took a full decade to roll the program out, covering roughly 1 year at at time (ie. 4 year olds, then 5 the next year, and 6 the next year and so on) .

That is not to suggest we ought not do something similar here.

Rather, its unlikely to be a near-term fix.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I think childcare should be free or drastically reduced just like Quebec. Invest in our children.

IDK, outside of tax credits we're not investing in your/our children's pre-school care now and we seem to be getting by. It's the same reason I objected to Wynne's free tuition - students and their parents are figuring it out on their own, even if that means sometimes a kid has to choose a cheaper option.

So, before we offer free daycare or tuition I'd like to invest in areas that are not only underfunded, but instead that get essentially no funding; for starters getting all the mentally ill and homeless off our streets through a permanent housing for everyone scheme - no more emergency shelters, no more insane folks sleeping under the highway, etc. Then we need more hospitals so that we're not dying in hallways. Fix housing and healthcare, then we can look at free childcare.

Free daycare is not free, you're asking everyone else to pay for it, yes, as an investment in the country - if taxpayer funds were infinite we could invest in everything. But we need to prioritize.

 

[TheKingEast]

IDK, outside of tax credits we're not investing in your/our children's pre-school care now and we seem to be getting by. It's the same reason I objected to Wynne's free tuition - students and their parents are figuring it out on their own, even if that means sometimes a kid has to choose a cheaper option.

So, before we offer free daycare or tuition I'd like to invest in areas that are not only underfunded, but instead that get essentially no funding; for starters getting all the mentally ill and homeless off our streets through a permanent housing for everyone scheme - no more emergency shelters, no more insane folks sleeping under the highway, etc. Then we need more hospitals so that we're not dying in hallways. Fix housing and healthcare, then we can look at free childcare.

Free daycare is not free, you're asking everyone else to pay for it, yes, as an investment in the country - if taxpayer funds were infinite we could invest in everything. But we need to prioritize.

I think the healthcare thing is a big issue, though. We aren't having kids because they are simply too expensive. This is why the government is trying so hard to bring in immigrants. I'm a child of immigrant parents so I'm not knocking immigration at all. I'm saying we aren't having children and cost is a big reason why. Fixing that addresses a lot of other problems IMO.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I think the healthcare thing is a big issue, though. We aren't having kids because they are simply too expensive.

IDK if that's the main reason. I think for many young adults and even those well into their 30s the idea of being tied to a crib isn't "fun" or rewarding. We're much more focused on having fun, living for the moment, experiences, etc. I was 29 when my twins were born in the early 2000s, my wife 28, and we'd been married for three years already. Look at your average 28 year old women today, maybe in the beginnings of a career, finally got her own apartment or place, looking forward to traveling and all the experiences she'll want to share with her friends. Even if she had money, does she want a kid at this stage of her life? No way. Then there's the growing likelihood that she lives alone or in a shared space, with no life partner to start a family with. This the case in China, where the women proclaim that they're not interested in having children, one interview I saw the women, in their mid to late 20s said I'm still a child, enjoying my toys and experiences, why would I want a kid to drag that down?

I think we're heading towards a major baby drop. Even immigrants can't keep up. Sure someone might move here from a country where having many children is normal, but watch their own daughters, they'll be headed to university and then maybe have one or two children later in life. My own experience, we moved here from Europe in the 1970s, my parents had three kids, my wife is of Eastern European descent, parents were from SK where large farm families were necessary. We decided to have one kid only, we didn't know we had a BOGO.

It's not only about cost, it's about the impact children have on ones quality of life. And as women get older they stand good odds of having children with special needs, often so dramatic that the marriage collapses and all hope seems lost. I consider myself very fortunate and blessed, I'm still happily married after over 20 years to someone I started a friendship with in Grade 10, we both have jobs we like, we have two healthy kids about to become adults, the house is paid for and we're all healthy.... but there were very dark days where if you'd asked me if I could turn back time to the freedoms of my 20s I would have been tempted.

Would free daycare address all this? Maybe? But in Quebec the birthrate continues to drop, and in places with rock solid child and family benefits like in Scandinavia and Japan, the birth rate is dramatically down.

The evolution of births in Quebec in six charts

A statistical look at how birthing has evolved in Quebec, from total numbers, to the age of mothers, to the preferred method of delivery.

montrealgazette.com

 

[BurlOak]

IDK if that's the main reason. I think for many young adults and even those well into their 30s the idea of being tied to a crib isn't "fun" or rewarding. We're much more focused on having fun, living for the moment, experiences, etc. I was 29 when my twins were born in the early 2000s, my wife 28, and we'd been married for three years already. Look at your average 28 year old women today, maybe in the beginnings of a career, finally got her own apartment or place, looking forward to traveling and all the experiences she'll want to share with her friends. Even if she had money, does she want a kid at this stage of her life? No way. Then there's the growing likelihood that she lives alone or in a shared space, with no life partner to start a family with. This the case in China, where the women proclaim that they're not interested in having children, one interview I saw the women, in their mid to late 20s said I'm still a child, enjoying my toys and experiences, why would I want a kid to drag that down?

I think we're heading towards a major baby drop. Even immigrants can't keep up. Sure someone might move here from a country where having many children is normal, but watch their own daughters, they'll be headed to university and then maybe have one or two children later in life. My own experience, we moved here from Europe in the 1970s, my parents had three kids, my wife is of Eastern European descent, parents were from SK where large farm families were necessary. We decided to have one kid only, we didn't know we had a BOGO.

It's not only about cost, it's about the impact children have on ones quality of life. And as women get older they stand good odds of having children with special needs, often so dramatic that the marriage collapses and all hope seems lost. I consider myself very fortunate and blessed, I'm still happily married after over 20 years to someone I started a friendship with in Grade 10, we both have jobs we like, we have two healthy kids about to become adults, the house is paid for and we're all healthy.... but there were very dark days where if you'd asked me if I could turn back time to the freedoms of my 20s I would have been tempted.

Would free daycare address all this? Maybe? But in Quebec the birthrate continues to drop, and in places with rock solid child and family benefits like in Scandinavia and Japan, the birth rate is dramatically down.

The evolution of births in Quebec in six charts

A statistical look at how birthing has evolved in Quebec, from total numbers, to the age of mothers, to the preferred method of delivery.

montrealgazette.com

Interesting charts. There are roughly 3 abortions for every 2 births in Quebec. (15.5% vs. 10.9%).
Replacement Birth Rate is about 15/1000/yr. Quebec is below that, but at about the Canadian average.

 

[lenaitch]

Oh no - abortion debate alert!