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Investing in mothers? The long-run impact of a universal child care
- black6 23d agoThis assumes that mothers in the workforce earning (taxable) income is a benefit in and of itself. It doesn't consider the familial impacts of outsourcing the raising of ones own offspring to another party.
- SoftTalker 23d agoYes, this was the same thought I had. What about investing in children by making it easier for their own mother to actually care for them, instead of working outside the home and dumping the kid in an institution.
- nemomarx 23d agohow would that work? replacing her lost wages to be sure it's not an economic disadvantage sounds hard
- Forgeties79 23d agoWe managed to have a society with a significant number of families living on one income for quite some time. 2 incomes shouldn’t be a requirement to keep a roof over a family’s head. The goal shouldn’t be “2 incomes,” it should be “1 income is sustainable and families can actually be a family.”
- bluGill 23d agoReally? What society? The 1950s got close in the US (I'm not sure about elsewhere, but I doubt it), but even then there were a lot of women working. If you go back to 1800 you will discover that saying families had only one income was because history is generally blind to "women's work" and so you have no idea what women did. (for that matter what most men did is something history only barely mentions). In 1850 a lot of people were more self sufficient - the whole family was growing their own food and making their own cloth - and so saying there was even one income is false - there mostly was no income but they only bought a few things and so only need a small income rarely. (historians can give you a much longer and more complex answer - mine is a gross simplification)
- Forgeties79 23d agoThat’s a fair point I considered including but it’s easy to get lost in the weeds here so I opted for an overly simplistic description. Ultimately what I am trying to say is the household income now required for many is too high and often unobtainable without 2 full time incomes outside the home (and often that’s not enough). That’s not sustainable if we don’t want people offloading all their parenting outside their home. The one working at home (domestic tasks and misc.) one working outside the home (direct income) model is basically impossible now for most people.
- nemomarx 23d agowhat economic program or change would you like to fix this?
- Forgeties79 23d agoI didn’t answer the first time you asked because it strikes me as somewhat unproductive and frankly whenever people ask questions like this it’s usually bait, but I’ll assume good faith here. I am not an expert on this subject, I am not proposing changes and mostly just saying what I observe/my opinion on this issue. This is also a US-centric take so bear that in mind. If I must voice a solution or something: Top of mind, in no particular order, is we need to talk about PTO being more universal (and not just a measly 10-20 work days a year or so) and, more importantly, we need to crack down on exploitative labor practices that lead to low incomes/too few working hours, compounded by (particularly in the shift work world) demands that people say “yes” to coming in to work at a moment’s notice. Generally speaking we need more flexibility for families, instead of the current model where we basically demand people burn their PTO (or just lose their job) for basic childcare reasons (sick, early dismissal from school, etc). This is all really dancing around the core issue though, which is that, despite our rhetoric about strong nuclear families, we’re culturally and economically hostile to families. Particularly those with young children. The support we offer is inadequate and many workplaces punish people for caring for their kids during work hours even when it isn’t really a choice. And when we talk about the cost or difficulty people often respond with “well, you shouldn’t have had kids. You’re irresponsible.” That’s just ridiculous when you think about it. We can’t say we want people to have families and then structure our society in a way that creates unnecessary barriers. Especially when those barriers depend on assumptions like “kids can’t demand anything during work hours.” I understand it’s easy to complain and offer no solutions, but I feel like what I’m doing is a little more nuanced than that. I don’t know what the answer is but I know what we are doing is not working and needs to be interrogated. That’s often the point of discussion after all - working out a possible solution. What do you propose we do?
- nemomarx 23d agomaking housing affordable also sounds like a pretty hard problem in most of the developed West, yeah? like if you have a good idea definitely pursue it though
- jimbokun 23d agoIt’s an easy problem but our political system is just really stupid, here in the US.
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- SoftTalker 23d agoYou are either paying the mother (or father) to stay home, or paying for child care so they can work. I don't think it has to be a completely level trade on an economic basis. A lot of parents would prefer to be able to stay home even if it's not a purely economic optimum. And staying at home doesn't necessarily preclude earning any income. A parent could still do part time work from home, or even outside the home, when the other parent is there etc.
- bluGill 23d agoThere is more to life than economics. Economics should put a floor on what you do in life - that is you need enough food to live, and enough shelter (including clothing)... However once that basics are met you need to ask about trade offs. Rice and beans are a nice meal once in a while, but sometimes I want "steak and caviar". Likewise, all I need to live is a "tiny house" shack with some heat - but I really like having more space. I wouldn't mind having the largest private house in the world complete with staff to maintain it - but the work I would need to afford is not something I'm willing to do (I'm not sure if I could get into the CEO suite if I tried, but I know enough of that CEOs do with their life that I'm not willing for that) At what point will you decide that something other than economics matter? I can tell you now that I have kids time with the kids is more important than money. However I'm also a staff software engineer and so I'm making more $$ than most. You need to make your own decisions based on your own life.
- jimbokun 23d agoWe had a few decades in the US where it was pretty normal and comfortable to raise a family on a single income. What law of physics dictates that it’s impossible to construct such a society again?
- graemep 23d agoTheir own mother or father. This is important for multiple reasons. Some fathers are better parents (I undoubtedly was), if you assume mothers do childcare it limits choices for both men and women. It is a barrier to equal childcare which I feel is ideal. Even other family member will have a lasting relationship with them and give them more one to one attention.
- nkrisc 23d agoYour phrasing betrays your bias. Having kids in childcare is not the downfall of society, and in some ways is similar to The Way Things Used To Be. My youngest goes to pre-school childcare where he gets to interact with kids and parents from his local community whom we see outside of childcare as well. He sees his “teacher” when he walks with me and his older brother to his school because her daughter goes to the same school as his brother. The people who work there are part of the community as well. Childcare can be the modern form of the village collectively caring for the children so that not every parent is busy with child-rearing all the time. It’s also good for kids to spend time interacting with people who aren’t part of their immediate family. Not every childcare program is created equal, but there is a place and need for good ones. Not once has it ever felt like “dumping him in an institution”. Your kids do not need you 100% of the time, and usually it’s better they’re not with you 100% of the time.
- SoftTalker 23d agoSure, and epecially when the child is a bit older then introducing a "preschool" situation for a few hours a day is probably valuable. But having an infant in a daycare for 8-10 hours a day is probably not.
- estearum 23d agoI would bet that approximately 100% of people advocating for funded childcare programs++ would want to avoid the "putting infants in daycare for 8-10hrs/day" scenario.
- moduspol 23d agoIn what way? I've seen many people advocate for universal childcare as a way to get mom back to working full time as quickly as possible. I've also seen it framed as a way of leveling the playing field, so women are less disadvantaged from men as a result of childbirth / care. I find that, if anything, there is little to no stigma to getting your child in daycare ASAP after maternity leave ends and going back to working full time. That's "infants in daycare for 8-10hrs/day".
- AndrewDucker 23d agoHaving had two kids go through nursery from an early age, they absolutely had a better time there, with more friends and a higher quality of entertainment, than they would have had at home with either of us.
- jimbokun 23d agoThat has to be true for the preservation of your own emotional well being and self image as a good person.
- MaxHoppersGhost 23d agoYou can take your kids to parents days out or parks where they consistently meet with other kids and become friends. The option isn't 100% daycare or 100% staying at home and never seeing anyone.
- Kinrany 23d agoChildren being cared for solely by their parents isn't "natural": children used to be raised by entire villages
- MaxHoppersGhost 23d agoYes but a daycare isn't your village raising your kids, it's random people, most aren't from your community much less your own country.
- tylrprtr 23d agoHow far away are people traveling for daycare?!?
- SepiaSapient 23d agoAh, now the pearl clutching makes sense. Some of other children in daycare are from the bad and weird ethnicity. Would a 23andme be a good requirement for playdates then?
- MaxHoppersGhost 23d agoI didn't say anything about ethnicity - are you kidding me? My community has nearly all ethnicities.
- SepiaSapient 23d agoThe worry about people from other countries kinda implies it, but maybe I'm misreading.
- eszed 23d agoI'm deliberately not addressing the article as a whole, but I'd like to engage with your smaller point. My parents viewed all day care as "dumping [their] kid in an institution" and made massive sacrifices so that my mum could housewife for a decade+ with me and my younger sister. My wife and I have made a different choice with our son, and I honestly wish my parents had done the same - at least after we were two or three. Admittedly, my wife and I are fortunate to be able to pay for him to go to an excellent pre-school (though the one local to my parents was similarly good), and I see him naturally acquiring a social fluency and confidence with his peers that I didn't have (if I even do!) until I was an adult. Furthermore, had I been cared for outside the home, my mum would have spent vastly more time with my sister when she was an infant and toddler, which I think would have been a lifelong benefit to her. I also think my mum would have been personally better off getting back to full-time work ~5 years earlier than she did: full-time parenting wore on her, and she and my dad would have been able to retire a few years sooner. Those are all highly-dependent personal circumstances, so I'm not going to draw a universal rule - but I'm telling you this in order to caution you against doing the same. All families, and all individual circumstances, are different. [Second thought] I am going to make one general point: the benefit my son draws is highly dependent upon attending a good school. Institutions absolutely exist where "dumping them" is an appropriate epithet to apply, but there is no reason why that has to be the case. I don't know where you live, but in my country the "pro-natalist" political party is also devoted to policies which make schools worse (cutting funding, lowering teacher pay, meddling with curricula, etc), which seems to me to be perverse.
- jimbokun 23d agoYou are citing the results of an experiment that is impossible to perform.
- eszed 22d agoOh, absolutely! But, so are most of the lessons we draw from life experience, instead of, like, science. That doesn't make them unimportant to talk about, so long as we approach them - and each other - with appropriate degrees of humility and good will.
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- cortesoft 23d agoYou have to pick what you want to measure. I think that is a different study; measuring the mental and emotional impact of two working parents. Both are interesting and useful, but I think they need to be separate studies.
- zmgsabst 23d agoThis doesn’t even show the family is better off economically — they only measure their earnings, but not lost labor while at home.
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- thinkingtoilet 23d agoIt also assumes having fathers in the work force earning taxable income is a benefit, but you seem totally fine with that assumption.
- jimbokun 23d agoAgreed the argument should be about single income or dual income families, regardless of gender.
- graemep 23d agoI made the same point in a less snarky way in my previous comment in this thread. It is a very deeply embedded assumption that women are primary parents. Any man who has been an equal or primary carer for their kids will tell you that.
- carlosjobim 23d agoMen cannot breast feed. In the first years, the mother is the primary parent, by biological instinct of the child alone. After that, both are parents and it depends if the mother or the father is the better parent. But you have to really hate your child (which many parents of course do) to try to force them to live against their biological instincts when they are infants.
- thinkingtoilet 23d agoMany women can not either. And some children simply will not. I have two boys. One would only breastfeed and never take the bottle. The other would only take a bottle and never breastfeed.
- BobbyThrowaway 23d ago> But you have to really hate your child (which many parents of course do) to try to force them to live against their biological instincts when they are infants. Is this a complaint against bottle feeding? If so, fuck right off. In the real world there are a lot of reasons not to breast feed, even though most people would love to be able to do it.
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- colechristensen 23d agoWomen entering the workforce eroded the ability to maintain a household on one income because of depressed wages and housing competition. There's no absolute cost to housing, people will pay what they afford and making more money means the housing cost rises, it doesn't make people "richer" just everything else more expensive. This isn't an argument that women shouldn't be allowed to work or anything ridiculous like that. We ALL should work less. Unfortunately just about everything ends up being an unintentional subsidy to the ever growing real estate price. You want to invest in mothers and do a million other societal benefit things? Do everything you can to damage the ability of people to profit from owning residential real estate.
- jimbokun 23d agoAnd the simplest way to do that is build more housing.
- colechristensen 23d agoUsually what people mean by this is "build smaller living spaces closer together"
- LanceH 23d ago> This assumes that mothers in the workforce earning (taxable) income is a benefit in and of itself. I think it's more about whether the investment pays back and defrays the costs.
- binary0010 23d agoAgreed, the mother and father should take off from the work force for 18 years to raise their kids and not have to earn a taxable income.
- add-sub-mul-div 23d agoThe rich were so successful in manipulating people with culture wars like "women shouldn't work" that the people who fell for it still don't realize the real war was them losing the economic standing in which it was viable for the typical family to have one working parent.
- estearum 23d agoThis is just rent. Land Value Tax fixes this.
- bigbuppo 23d agoThat is correct. While I too would like to see what it looks like if one parent staying home is subsidized, this still shows that subsidizing child care is a net benefit for everyone, and as such it's a good idea to keep the program going.
- ndriscoll 23d agoIt doesn't show that. Subsidies will shift the margin of who can afford to have a stay at home parent, so if being raised by a parent is better than childcare, you expect people on the margin to lose out. This is in contrast to something like a child subsidy that could be used for childcare or to support a parent raising the child (e.g. in the US, increasing the refundable child tax credit).
- LeBit 23d agoYou are taking things to the extreme. I live in Québec. I have children that both went in a province subsidized kindergarten. By the way, there are different types of such kindergarten. «Milieu familial» which is literally sending your children to a private house of someone to have them babysit your children during the day. They can have a maximum of 6 children with them. And there are the CPE or «Centre de la petite enfance». There you have highly qualified personnel, way more resources than a "family environment" can provide. They have many more children. The children can socialize much more. But, being able to have a place for your child in a CPE is akin to winning the lottery. I wouldn’t be surprised some families have paid bribes to get a place.
- purpleflame1257 23d agoThe same authors saw some evidence of development problems among the children in the same cohort. https://www.nber.org/papers/w21571 https://www.nber.org/papers/w21571
- CincinnatiMan 23d agoSo is the takeaway that universal child care has a positive impact on GDP of the parents, but a negative impact on the overall life of the child?
- zmgsabst 23d agoOf course it has positive GDP on the parents: if two women each care for each others children rather than their own, GDP goes up even though the impact on both families is negative (due to lost travel time, as the mothers swap roles).
- bluGill 23d agoThe more likely case is one person (most often women, but men do childcare as well) is taking care of the kids of at least 3 couples (6 people), and could be up over 10 couples (which happens though often isn't legal or a good idea). That is per year, the kids grow out of daycare in 12-15 years, but a person typically works for 40 years.
- parasxos 23d ago[dead]
- Tycho 23d agoSo from a fiscal perspective, it more or less pays for itself through greater career taxable earnings of the women, according to the study. (EDIT: unless of course these extra earnings were mostly transfers so-to-speak from non-mothers to mothers) From a societal and human perspective, unclear that it’s worth it.
- dfilppi 23d ago[dead]