Quebec's Universal Childcare Hurt Children and Families

[Toro]

Canada's Universal Childcare Hurt Children and Families

"Children's outcomes have worsened since the program was introduced along a variety of behavioral and health dimensions. "

... Disturbingly, the authors report that children's outcomes have worsened since the program was introduced along a variety of behavioral and health dimensions. The NLSCY contains a host of measures of child well being developed by social scientists, ranging from aggression and hyperactivity, to motor-social skills, to illness. Along virtually every one of these dimensions, children in Quebec see their outcomes deteriorate relative to children in the rest of the nation over this time period. Their results imply that this policy resulted in a rise of anxiety of children exposed to this new program of between 60 percent and 150 percent, and a decline in motor/social skills of between 8 percent and 20 percent. These findings represent a sharp break from previous trends in Quebec and the rest of the nation, and there are no such effects found for older children who were not subject to this policy change.

The authors also find that families became more strained with the introduction of the program, as manifested in more hostile, less consistent parenting, worse adult mental health, and lower relationship satisfaction for mothers.

...

http://www.nber.org/digest/jun06/w11832.html

[Toro]

Equity and Quebec's daycare program

One of the Conservatives' election campaign promises was to provide financial support to parents directly, to the tune of $1,200 per child. Progressive-minded commentators have condemned this policy in no uncertain terms; their preferred model runs more along the lines of the Quebec government's $7/day (formerly $5/day) program. Maybe it shouldn't.

At the meetings of the Canadian Economics Association in Montreal last month, the Innis Lecture was given by my colleague Jean-Yves Duclos. The title of his talk was 'Equity and Equality', and he offered the Quebec daycare program as a classic case of a policy that appears to be progressive, but which turns out not to be.

...

From the excellent Worthwhile Canadian Initiative blog.

[betsy]

That's why it makes me wonder why on earth would the Liberals and NDP insist on something that had been considered a failure! There's more to it than just their so-called "concern" for the welfare of the children.

[BubberMiley]

But the alternative ishome-based daycares, which leaves kids with overworked caregivers in sketchy conditions watching TV all day.

[Toro]

That's why it makes me wonder why on earth would the Liberals and NDP insist on something that had been considered a failure! There's more to it than just their so-called "concern" for the welfare of the children.

I don't think people yet see it as a failure. Its still too new, and has a good, fuzzy feeling about it.

The question is if people will change their views when these studies become more widespread.

[Riverwind]

At the meetings of the Canadian Economics Association in Montreal last month, the Innis Lecture was given by my colleague Jean-Yves Duclos. The title of his talk was 'Equity and Equality', and he offered the Quebec daycare program as a classic case of a policy that appears to be progressive, but which turns out not to be.

Rationing is another inequality that exists in the system. Many families cannot access those cheap spaces when they need them. The process for assigning the available spaces to families is pretty arbitrary and there are many 'less needy' families that get them while 'more needy' families struggle.

The conservative plan does not address that issue either, however, the conservatives will be able to deliver exactly what they promised which makes it more intellectually honest.

[August1991]

At the meetings of the Canadian Economics Association in Montreal last month, the Innis Lecture was given by my colleague Jean-Yves Duclos. The title of his talk was 'Equity and Equality', and he offered the Quebec daycare program as a classic case of a policy that appears to be progressive, but which turns out not to be.

Rationing is another inequality that exists in the system. Many families cannot access those cheap spaces when they need them. The process for assigning the available spaces to families is pretty arbitrary and there are many 'less needy' families that get them while 'more needy' families struggle.

The conservative plan does not address that issue either, however, the conservatives will be able to deliver exactly what they promised which makes it more intellectually honest.

We have discussed this before and posted my opinion (and links) about the Quebec system here. I agree with Riverview that rationing is the major problem.

I haven't read the NBER paper but I wonder about the credibility and competence of economists to analyze child development measures. Organized day care has been around for decades or more. Young children have been cared for in groups by non-parents for millenia. I don't see why the Quebec CPE should be harmful.

OTOH, it is entirely false to refer to it as "universal" when it's not. Many children don't or can't go to a CPE. There are wait lists. Every cent of government money previously directed to children is now directed to the CPE network. And it is largely middle to upperclass, double-income families that benefit from it.

This past year was difficult because unionized CPE employees went on strike or tried other tactics (opening at 10 am) to obtain higher wages.

There is a certain unspoken hypocrisy in Quebec about these kinds of issues. Quebec has the largest percentage of high school students enrolled in private schools which are curiously subsidized by the State. The CPEs function in a similar way.

[Bakunin]

I think its alot easyer to attack an organisation than attack an unorganised child care system.

If there is anything wrong with the cpe is they are too much popular and parent put their children in them too young wich is the real cause of the problem. At least if anyone want to bash the cpe system, he should at least be fair enough to analyse failure of the other systems.

[August1991]

At least if anyone want to bash the cpe system, he should at least be fair enough to analyse failure of the other systems.

Brébeuf and le Petit Séminaire are subsidized by taxpayers. The CPE of Outremont too. Elsewhere in Canada, that doesn't happen.

[Bakunin]

At least if anyone want to bash the cpe system, he should at least be fair enough to analyse failure of the other systems.

Brébeuf and le Petit Séminaire are subsidized by taxpayers. The CPE of Outremont too. Elsewhere in Canada, that doesn't happen.

I don't think the real debate should be about subsidized cpe or not, i think it should be about organized cpe or not. I understand that once it is subsidized it is more criticized though, i beleive in other province the media never talked about accessibility of child care even if it is more deficient than in quebec while here it is criticized because it is subsidized by the taxpayers. I beleive one of the major problem of the cpe is equality but since our society is so much based on that sacro-saint equality, i don't think it become a problem in a general percpective. But anyway, i know ppl that worked in cpe and in private child care and from their point of vue, the cpe is a major imporvement for the care.

[Melanie_]

I think people are assuming that the model Quebec has followed is the model organized child care in the rest of Canada will also follow. Quebec's model is flawed in that it tried to expand too rapidly, putting space availability ahead of ensuring quality care for those spaces. I suspect that a lot of people were given jobs working in child care centres, simply because they were available and said they liked children, whether they actually knew anything about working with children or not.

The other assumption people constantly make is that the rest of Canada will adopt the $7/day mandate. While this plan has it's advocates, I can't see it happening. Child care costs money, and parents should be expected to pay for it when possible. Sliding scale subsidies based on income are available here in Manitoba (and I assume in other provinces), but for the most part parents pay $18.80/day for preschool care. The biggest issue, as implied above, is balancing availability of space with good, nurturing, developmentally appropriate care, whether its centre based or home based.

[Michael Hardner]

The NBER study seems to be deeply flawed.

I haven't read the NBER paper but I wonder about the credibility and competence of economists to analyze child development measures.

Exactly, Auguste.

Link: Scroll Down to the Second Story...

Another major problem with the study is that it doesn’t actually study children who are enrolled in child care programs. A careful reading of the report reveals that they examined the possible effects of child care on children who were "eligible" for Quebec’s child care program but who were not necessarily enrolled in any child care programs at all. In fact, the "findings" of increased aggression in children could just as easily be attributed to the children who were NOT enrolled in a child care program.

If this point, and the others made in the article are true then the study should be rejected outright.

[lost&outofcontrol]

snip

From your link Michael

Another major problem with the study is that it doesn’t actually study children who are enrolled in child care programs. A careful reading of the report reveals that they examined the possible effects of child care on children who were "eligible" for Quebec’s child care program but who were not necessarily enrolled in any child care programs at all. In fact, the "findings" of increased aggression in children could just as easily be attributed to the children who were NOT enrolled in a child care program.

Nuclear family grasping at straws.

[Charles Anthony]

The original research paper looks at three different things:

How Does Use of Childcare Depend on Its Price?

What is the Effect of Childcare subsidies on Work?

How Does Childcare Utilization Affect Child Development?

It is only the last question whereby the comment:

A careful reading of the report reveals that they examined the possible effects of child care on children who were "eligible" for Quebec’s child care program but who were not necessarily enrolled in any child care programs at all. In fact, the "findings" of increased aggression in children could just as easily be attributed to the children who were NOT enrolled in a child care program.

applies and the writers do not hide this. There is simply a lack of specific-enough data.

The research paper deals with the lack data by examining statistical trends of various "child development factors" before and after the introduction of the CPE policy in Quebec. They also compare those trends to the rest of Canada. The conclusions they draw are worded thus:

Part VI: Conclusion

In this paper we provide, to our knowledge, the first comprehensive analysis of a universal subsidized childcare program, following its impact from childcare use through employment and finally to children’s and parent’s outcomes. We uncover strong evidence of a shift into new childcare use, although approximately one third of the newly reported use appears to come from women who previously worked and had informal arrangements. The labor supply impact is strongly significant, and our measured elasticity of 0.236 is slightly smaller than previous credible estimates. Finally, we report striking evidence that children’s outcomes have worsened since the program was introduced. We also find suggestive evidence that families we study became more strained with the introduction of the program. This is manifested in increased aggressiveness and anxiety for the children, more hostile, less consistent parenting for the adults, and worse adult mental health and relationship satisfaction.

As discussed earlier, these results are subject to a number of interpretations that highlight the importance of future work in this area. Most importantly, it is not clear whether the negative child outcomes are short-run transitions or long-run effects. We also have no results for single parent families, a group that previous studies suggest can benefit from high quality childcare. In addition, we raise a puzzle here of why families would take advantage of a policy which leads to worse child outcomes, worse parenting, and worse parental outcomes. It is possible that the other unmeasured benefits of higher family incomes offset these costs. Alternatively, it is possible that families will learn that they are not better off in this new regime, and that ultimately use of subsidized childcare may fall. Once again, following the long-run evolution of these policy effects will be central to a full welfare analysis of the program.

UNIVERSAL CHILDCARE, MATERNAL LABOR SUPPLY AND FAMILY WELL-BEING

Michael Baker, Jonathan Gruber, Kevin Milligan

Working Paper 11832

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

1050 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge, MA 02138

Issued in December 2005

[Michael Hardner]

Charles:

the writers do not hide this.

Fair enough... but look at the first post. Some excerpts:

The headline:

Canada's Universal Childcare Hurt Children and Families

False.

"Children's outcomes have worsened since the program was introduced along a variety of behavioral and health dimensions. "

Very misleading.

Just look at the posts in this thread. Most people, me included, assumed that this study showed something real. We trusted the information posted, and accepted it. I dropped my guard, and was fooled by the official look and impartial language of the site. I didn't read the actual report, because it was subscription only.

Only when I found a critique of the report did I realize how much I'd been fooled. These types of Trojan horses are worse than political advertising - much harder to spot. The NBER clearly has some kind of agenda, or they wouldn't stoop to deceive as they did here.

[Charles Anthony]

These types of Trojan horses are worse than political advertising - much harder to spot. The NBER clearly has some kind of agenda, or they wouldn't stoop to deceive as they did here.

I agree. Particularly with the headline.

However, their bias is a drop in a sea of nanny-state policies and union-backed socialist agendas.

How else could they get anybody's attention?

[Michael Hardner]

I agree. Particularly with the headline.

However, their bias is a drop in a sea of nanny-state policies and union-backed socialist agendas.

How else could they get anybody's attention?

So you advocate fighting lies with lies then ?

I hope we haven't really fallen that far.

I would submit that it's time for people to start thinking more critically on both sides of the great centre line.

[Charles Anthony]

So you advocate fighting lies with lies then ?

No.

I would hope that this study leads us to ask: Why are we NOT collecting more specific data?

[Michael Hardner]

Well, that's certainly a better question.

This:

How else could they get anybody's attention?

sounded like rationalization but maybe not.

Here are some possibles reasons why "we" are not trying to find the answer.

1 ) Everybody who has the resources to look into this has a vested interest in the outcome.

2 ) It would be almost impossible to set up an experiment to measure such a thing.

3 ) Nobody cares about facts anyway.

I proved 3 ) myself by falling for the initial study, even though I pretty much minored in statistics, and even took a course on methodology and common abuses.

I'd say 3 ) is the strongest reason. People don't demand facts, they trust advocates of various types to do that for them.

[Charles Anthony]

With respect to the vested interests, Statisticss Canada spends our money and holds all of the cards. They choose the questions and they collect the data. They also interpret the data for us too somtimes, so that we do not have to think.

The source of information from the "Quebec's Universal Childcare Hurt Children and Families" study comes from a program called National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY)

http://www.statcan.ca/cgi-bin/imdb/p2SV.pl...g=f&adm=8&dis=2

After a simple web search, I refer to a website called "Fathers For Life" (admittedly, they probably have a bias too) with respect to evaluating how the NLSCY program presents its own research from the late 1990's:

There is noticeable emphasis on the harmful effects of poverty on children's development, just as in "

Growing up in Canada

", which was produced from the 94/95 cycle of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). That, of course, is in keeping with the government's agenda pertaining to the "war on child-poverty."

However, there is a slight difference in presenting or downplaying the data pertaining to certain family-patterns and their influence on the development of children.

In "

Growing up in Canada

" the emphasis was on the fact that the majority of children with adjustment problems resided in two-parent families. That shouldn't come as a suprise to anyone who realizes that 4/5 of the children surveyed did live in those families. So, why mention it? Could it be that it has something to do with the feminist agenda of labeling two-parent families as being detrimental to the development of children and drawing attention away from the fact that children from single-parent families are more than twice as likely to have behaviour problems? At any rate, what should have been stressed is that single-parent families, comprising 1/5 of all families surveyed, produced 1/3 of all children with behavioural problems.

----snip---

Wouldn't it be great to be able to look at the data collected without having to rely only on biased interpretations? However, although thousands of Canadian familiies had to devote tens of thousands of hours in answering the survey questions, the data collected is accessible to Canadians only for a price: The 1994/95 data was made available at $1,500 +7% GST. There is no reason to suspect that the data from the 1996/97 cycle of the study will be any cheaper — far out of the reach of the under-funded pro-family organizations and un-funded and destitute fathers' rights organizations in Canada.

Maybe we'll be lucky and the government-funded family-hostile women's organization will manage again to get StatCan and Health-Canada to produce a special report like "

Growing up in Canada

" in which they'll produce some useful data like the comparison between the impact of different family types have on the development of our children.

http://www.fathersforlife.org/longitudinal...h_Canada_97.htm

[Michael Hardner]

Charles:

In "Growing up in Canada" the emphasis was on the fact that the majority of children with adjustment problems resided in two-parent families. That shouldn't come as a suprise to anyone who realizes that 4/5 of the children surveyed did live in those families. So, why mention it?

Excellent example. It's important to note that the source data for both surveys was correct, but the implied conclusions were misleading.