Tories' child-care plan falls flat, poll says

[M.Dancer]

It is exactly the affluent who get the most out of daycare because they can generate the most income from having someone else look after their child while they work.

Does it make any economic sense to you to have a daycare spot which cost $1400/month subsidized to $400/month so that the parent can go earn $1000 month?

That's exactly why that is rediculous.

I think we can agree that without subsidizing cost, there is a point where daycares could not operate charging less ...and a apoint where charging more they would not have clients. The affluent have the most choice. They can pay top dollar at a daycare or they can have a nanny.

That being said, the working lower middle class do not have the choice...for a two income family, yes a second income of $3000 is worth it even if the cost is $1400 to mind the kids.....for a one income single parent the formulae starts getting tricky....at what point does the parent say, I would be better off at home on welfare?

Our society needs children. Putting stumbling blocks in the way of parents and at the same time decrying imigration is a lemming like plan that will come back quickly to bite us.

[M.Dancer]

I never would have thought that someone would need proof that a well rounded society included the betterment of children...no you are right...what quantifiable benefit could there be for society....

"well rounded society"? I thought your argument was that it was an "investment". Some investment if you can't show a payback.

Are you familiar with Dafasco's tag line?

It's a payback that has greater value than mere numbers.

[M.Dancer]

A study in Britain says the Universal Daycare is worth 40 billion pounds.....

I'm not sure what a construction boom in daycares would be worth here.....

http://www.daycaretrust.org.uk/article.php...int&sid=169

[Renegade]

Since I already discussed why turning daycares into a luxary for trhe elite is wrong headed....it benefits those who need the the least....single parents who have no other option will be finely fusckered indeed.....I will turn to lax regulations.

If single parents want highly regulated childcare run by ECE professionals, they should factor that cost into their decision to have or keep children and act accordingly. Meaning, if they can't afford it, don't have the kids.

Would you let your children learn to sail from a company that didn't pass coast guard certification? Learn to fly on a plane without proper maintenance.....let you children go to school in a building that's not up to code?

No, I wouldn't. But I expect that cost of that certification to be included in the price I pay. I don't expect someone else to bear that cost.

Let's say the government introduced such a high level of regulation on schools which taught sailing, that it dramatically increased the cost to the point where I and most people couldn't afford it. What would I do? Either not teach my child to sail, or I or a friend or relative would teach them ourselves. Of course we may be poor teachers and our boats may be unsafe, but since the regulation has put a barrier so high, we opt to take that chance.

[Renegade]

It's a payback that has greater value than mere numbers.

Yes I'm familiar with your response. When ever someone wants funding for their pet cause but they can't prove the actual value, they will cite an intangible value "greater than mere numbers" or for "the good of society", blah, blah, blah.

Fact is what is being asked for are investmetn dollars, (ie numbers), to back a case that those dollars are well spent you need to quantify value (ie numbers). Anything less fails to make your case.

[M.Dancer]

Since I already discussed why turning daycares into a luxary for trhe elite is wrong headed....it benefits those who need the the least....single parents who have no other option will be finely fusckered indeed.....I will turn to lax regulations.

If single parents want highly regulated childcare run by ECE professionals, they should factor that cost into their decision to have or keep children and act accordingly. Meaning, if they can't afford it, don't have the kids.

Would you let your children learn to sail from a company that didn't pass coast guard certification? Learn to fly on a plane without proper maintenance.....let you children go to school in a building that's not up to code?

No, I wouldn't. But I expect that cost of that certification to be included in the price I pay. I don't expect someone else to bear that cost.

Let's say the government introduced such a high level of regulation on schools which taught sailing, that it dramatically increased the cost to the point where I and most people couldn't afford it. What would I do? Either not teach my child to sail, or I or a friend or relative would teach them ourselves. Of course we may be poor teachers and our boats may be unsafe, but since the regulation has put a barrier so high, we opt to take that chance.

Surely you are sterile?

[Renegade]

I think we can agree that without subsidizing cost, there is a point where daycares could not operate charging less ...and a apoint where charging more they would not have clients. The affluent have the most choice. They can pay top dollar at a daycare or they can have a nanny.

That being said, the working lower middle class do not have the choice...for a two income family, yes a second income of $3000 is worth it even if the cost is $1400 to mind the kids.....for a one income single parent the formulae starts getting tricky....at what point does the parent say, I would be better off at home on welfare?

Of course the working lower middle class have a choice. They have a choice to have kids or not. If the overall burden is too much for them to bear, they should not have kids.

If what you are arguing is that those on welfare need subsidized childcare, that is a different discussion. You are proposing a childcare subsidiy which affects all parents seeking childcare.

Our society needs children. Putting stumbling blocks in the way of parents and at the same time decrying imigration is a lemming like plan that will come back quickly to bite us.

I never was against immigration. If you look at immigration threads where I've commented you will see that I am strongly pro-immigration. As far as society needing children, society does not need to add additional inducements to have children. People already have children without those inducements. Our population has grown for years and will continue to do so for a while yet. Personally I see a better argument to say that we should be reducing or stabilizing our population.

[Renegade]

Surely you are sterile?

Huh? What are you taking about? I'm a parent, and I feel I bear full responsbilty for the cost of raising and educating my children. I won't have any more kids, because I'm not willing to take on any more of that responsibility than I've already signed up for.

[M.Dancer]

Sorry...I just can't imagine a serious person, a parent suggesting that ......

Of course we may be poor teachers and our boats may be unsafe, but since the regulation has put a barrier so high, we opt to take that chance.

Nor can I wrap myself around why I person would suggest others do so as well.

[Renegade]

A study in Britain says the Universal Daycare is worth 40 billion pounds.....

I'm not sure what a construction boom in daycares would be worth here.....

http://www.daycaretrust.org.uk/article.php...int&sid=169

The study says that the prmary benefit is to mother by increased earnings. It also says that the number could be wrong:

The study suggests that these long-term net benefits could accumulate to around £40 billion over a 65-year period (at 2003 prices), but these estimates are subject to significant uncertainties, particularly in relation to the increase in female employment resulting from the move to universal childcare provision. A one percentage point variation in the female employment rate could cause the results to vary from a net benefit of around £85 billion to a net cost of around £6 billion.

In principle I'm fine with an investmetn, so long as the funding for that investment is repaid by the beneficiaries.

[Renegade]

Sorry...I just can't imagine a serious person, a parent suggesting that ......

Of course we may be poor teachers and our boats may be unsafe, but since the regulation has put a barrier so high, we opt to take that chance.

Nor can I wrap myself around why I person would suggest others do so as well.

Isn't that what is done everyday? Did you teach your kid to ride a bike? Were you certified and trained to do so?

Should we require mothers who want to stay home and look after their kids be certified and trained as ECE professionals? Why not, we require it of childcare staff?

[Renegade]

Okay..a hypothetical.....

Which benefits society more

Children growing up in a healthy enriched environment

Children growing up living on welfare.

Can't answer that one becaue living on welfare is not mutually exclusive of a healthy enriched environment. A lot depends upon the parent.

[Melanie_]

Renegade, I disagree with your purely dollars and sense approach to providing childcare, but here is some evidence that points to the economic benefits.

Two economists from the University of Toronto, Gordon Cleveland and Michael Krashinsky, have been doing research for years on the economic impact of child care. Here's a quote from an older article (beware, the entire article is 103 pages long)...

http://www.childcarecanada.org/pubs/other/benefits/bc.pdf

The economics profession uses the term “market failure” as a rubric for various ways in

which markets will not work well. There is an extensive literature about the various

types of market failure, and most economists believe that there are cases where markets

do not work appropriately and where some sort of government intervention is required.

There are several ways in which child care can be shown to involve this kind of market

failure. And the notion of market failure provides a framework for explaining and

arguing for government intervention in the economy. If one wants to use economic

analysis to argue for child care programs, then it is precisely this kind of approach that is

necessary.

A more recent article they published sets out their idea of how a publicly funded system should work. This was in response to the Liberal QUAD (Quality, Universality, Accessibility, Developmentally appropriate) plan, which of course is now defunct.

http://www.ccsd.ca/pubs/2004/cc/cleveland-krashinsky.pdf

the debate over whether early learning and child care should be financed mainly by parents or mainly by the public is over. By our calculations (Cleveland and Krashinsky, 1998, 2003b), the incremental social and economic benefits of a publicly financed system of early learning and child care services for children aged two to five exceed the costs by a margin of at least two to one.

[Renegade]

Renegade, I disagree with your purely dollars and sense approach to providing childcare, but here is some evidence that points to the economic benefits.

Melanie, I don't really know another way that decisions can be rationally made on whether we should or shouldn't invest in infrastructure without quantifying the benefits. Governments do this all the time, except what they quantify is the cost in political support vs the corresponding gain in political support.

How else would we know if a childcare shoudl be universally funded, only partially subsidized, or only for low-income parents, or not funded at all?

I appreciate you posting the links. I will look them over and comment when I have had a chance to look at them better.

[M.Dancer]

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing

[Renegade]

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing

You need to measure the value to determine if the price is worth paying.Have a read.

[M.Dancer]

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing

You need to measure the value to determine if the price is worth paying.Have a read.

Children, education and their lives aren't commodities.

[Renegade]

Children, education and their lives aren't commodities.

Yes, I agree, yet, society doesn't write a blank cheque and spend indefinite amounts to educate children.

[Charles Anthony]

here is some evidence that points to the economic benefits.

Two economists from the University of Toronto, Gordon Cleveland and Michael Krashinsky, have been doing research for years on the economic impact of child care.

I just spent that last day struggling through both of those articles and I was not impressed.

The thrust of the authors' conclusions hinge on their fixation of "market failure" in the nursery school industry. The problem is that "market failure" exists everywhere if you are willing to be precise enough. For markets NOT to fail, the conditions are extremely stringent. [i will not define both those situations since the authors do so already in your quoted article. I trust that you read them.] Since there is market failure, the conclusion is that the government must intervene to clear the market.

However, following this logic, we should also have the government intervene in practically every market -- except for maybe the stock market. The analysis of these authors is really no more profound. Truly, all of the excessive analyses (they go into enormous detail of the different ways in which the market fails for daycare services) are a waste of paper because most of it is self-evident.

http://www.childcarecanada.org/pubs/other/benefits/bc.pdf

However, the authors spend very little effort on their more extravagant assumptions. That is my next bone of contention.

The studies thinly provide evidence to support the connection: earlier daycare leads to a benefit to society as a whole. They look at student performance up to ages 10 and 13 years but never beyond. Now I ask: who cares about a 13 year old's academic performance? Is it not more important to look at their development as adults too?? The closest the authors go to such a more profound examination is extrapolating across completely different studies to suggest that early institutionalized daycare attendance leads to lower high school drop out rates. They make the connection thusly:

- one study in France compares early daycare attendance to grade 1 failure/repetition rates (kids without daycare experience tended to repeat grade 1 more than others)

- a second study from Canada compares early drop out rates to high school drop out rates (kids who failed grade 1 tended to drop out of high school more than others)

From this, the conclusion is drawn that early nursery school leads to a benefit to society. Blah.

The shorter 4 page study is pathetic. It is nothing more than a policy bias cluttered by over-the-top mumbo-jumbo. Have you ever had a doctor explain something to you in technical jargon??? They usually do so because they are disguising their true message or they just want you to think they are so smart. You just nod and say: "Yes, yes, yes. (Get me out of here!)" That second article amounts to nothing more. I have a lot of disdain for academics who misuse their specialties to con the public into supporting their politics.

I will provide a disgusting quote from that study that opens their comparison of public, private and non-profit daycares:

The appropriate context for considering the differences between public, non-profit and commercial service providers is what is called “principal-agent theory.” Since there is a public interest in the provision of early learning and care services, we want the service providers (the agents) to faithfully pursue, as much as possible, the wishes of the government (the principal).

http://www.ccsd.ca/pubs/2004/cc/cleveland-krashinsky.pdf

This quote clearly sets the stage for the authors' bias and motivation.

Defending the babysitting-nursery-daycare-early-learning-pre-public-school-conditioning-job-creation industry from these studies is the same as defending the running shoe industry. If everybody had top quality running shoes, we would all be in much better health:

- less people would have sore feet

- more people would be encouraged to maintain a job,

- less financial burden on our health care system

- yadda yadda yadda

Therefore, we should have a national running shoe strategy because society would benefit as a whole. The running shoe companies would be happy too.

[Melanie_]

Reading both articles, particularly the first one, was quite a chore, so I appreciate that you took the time to do so. I read them both, but I'll admit that I read the first one a couple of years ago, then just skimmed it before posting it here.

I am far from an economist, but the premise of market failure makes sense in the child care industry. If it makes sense in other industries as well, that is a topic for another thread.

Good child care is a benefit to society. A short term investment in young families when they are in their prime childbearing years allows them to both start their families and continue to be productive in their workplaces. As they age, they pay back that short term investment many times over in their taxes.

This passage I found disturbing:

Now I ask: who cares about a 13 year old's academic performance? Is it not more important to look at their development as adults too??

13 year old's academic performance is a good indicator of how they will continue academically. By this age they have set patterns and attitudes regarding school - of course these patterns and attitudes can be changed, but not easily.