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Why Child Care Is So Expensive

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#11

Post by jandrese »

dcolkitt wrote: post #3
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #2

Women's introduction to the workforce was the right thing to happen but it fundamentally hurt labor and the "middle class". You can't double the supply without changing anything in the system and inflationary effects of dual income are ridiculous.

I don't think there's any firm evidence to back this up. In Japan, women entered the workforce much slower than the West. Yet incomes and wages in Japan have grown at slower rates than America and Europe.

Japan has some pretty severe confounding economic factors however.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#12

Post by whb07 »

next they should make an article titled “Why getting into great physical shape requires a lot of effort”.

Is anyone really learning anything from this article? Or is this just a general complaint looking for a boogeyman.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#14

Post by Miner49er »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #2

Women's introduction to the workforce was the right thing to happen but it fundamentally hurt labor and the "middle class". You can't double the supply without changing anything in the system and inflationary effects of dual income are ridiculous.

Well it's a chicken and an egg thing. Did women entering the workforce hurt labor? Or was labor hurting and that's why women entered the workforce?

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#15

Post by SkyBelow »

So the three reasons given by the article.

* Primarily labor driven. You can't automate, you can't reduce hours, you squeeze 9 hours of child care out of an 8 hour workday.

* Regulation. This prevents the one way to lower labor cost: increasing child to adult ratio. Laws prevent this.

* Real estate costs. Child care can't be moved to cheaper cities and there is even limits on the extent it can be moved within a city before it becomes to costly (in time) for parents to utilize it.

Overall... I think the second reason can be wrapped up into the first one. While legally mandated insurance and such do have an impact, the biggest impact is the limit on child to adult ratio which has the largest impact on costs and that is because it limits the efficiency a single worker can have. If the ratio is 4 kids to 1 adult, the cost will never be below 1/4 the adult's salary. If you expect the adult to be paid a living wage, then in terms of others earning a living wage, 25% of their income will have to go to child care, and that is before counting any taxes or other costs.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#16

Post by dbancajas »

ChaosDegenerate wrote: post #6

The thing with female workforce participation: isn't it just symptom of the society getting poorer. My wife worked her ass off. I was making about 130k / year. She was making about 60k / year. Then we not only moved from the US to Poland (where live is just so much cheaper). But I also started making about 330k / year. All the willingness to work evaporated on her part :-) Instead we have another kid. She stopped tal…

do you have a business for 330K/year in Poland?

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#17

Post by raincom »

PaulHoule wrote: post #10
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #2

Women's introduction to the workforce was the right thing to happen but it fundamentally hurt labor and the "middle class". You can't double the supply without changing anything in the system and inflationary effects of dual income are ridiculous.

See this Liz Warren book: https://www.amazon.com/Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Parents-... Henry Ford realized that the automobile was not going to change the world unless auto workers were so productive that they could easily afford the cars they made. That kind of productivity increase is not possible w/ Childcare. I remember a Z Magazine cartoon more than 20 years ago where two women were pondering the mystery of w…

What is DQN?

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#18

Post by cortesoft »

ChaosDegenerate wrote: post #6

The thing with female workforce participation: isn't it just symptom of the society getting poorer. My wife worked her ass off. I was making about 130k / year. She was making about 60k / year. Then we not only moved from the US to Poland (where live is just so much cheaper). But I also started making about 330k / year. All the willingness to work evaporated on her part :-) Instead we have another kid. She stopped tal…

I would be very careful about making that large a generalization (that all else being equal, women would prefer to stay home over working).

Childcare is mind numbing work, especially with young kids. Sure, some women (and men) would prefer that, but a LOT of women prefer office work over raising children.

"why not to enjoy life instead of spending 50-60 hours at the office?" is really selling short how much work raising young kids is. It is NOT enjoying life to stay home with toddlers. Maybe once they start school and you get hours to yourself, but before that it is way more time consuming than working at an office.

I know, I have done both. I took long paternity leaves to care for both of my kids, and while I love being able to bond with the kids, I was so happy to be able to go back to work. The freedom I have at the office compared to being home with the kids was night and day. Just being able to go to the bathroom when I need to, to get food when I want..... young kids are non-stop work.

I LOVE being a dad, but the weekends are way more stressful than the weekdays. Wrangling kids is way harder than programming computers.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#19

Post by georgeburdell »

As the article notes, the reason is regulation and women entering the workforce.

Honestly I don’t see a problem. We as a society have decided that we would rather be 100% safe rather than accept risk for lower cost, so we enforce strict ratios on children to caretaker ratios, license people, make in-home sprinklers mandatory, etc. $16k per child per year in Massachusetts is that cost.

For what it’s worth, none of my friends put infants in daycare due to the cost. They either got foreign au pairs or hired someone under the table for cash (very common in immigrant communities)

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#20

Post by ChaosDegenerate »

FactolSarin wrote: post #9
ChaosDegenerate wrote: post #6

The thing with female workforce participation: isn't it just symptom of the society getting poorer. My wife worked her ass off. I was making about 130k / year. She was making about 60k / year. Then we not only moved from the US to Poland (where live is just so much cheaper). But I also started making about 330k / year. All the willingness to work evaporated on her part :-) Instead we have another kid. She stopped tal…

I don't think that's necessarily woman-specific. I'm a guy, and if I could stay at home all day and spend time with my kids, I would too. Certainly, I would if my wife was making 330k/year :D

Yes, but also it's not like having maternal instinct wouldn't make this decision easier for you.

And keep in mind, statistics say than one of the divorce factors is husband making less than wife. From her perspective: this isn't sexy at all.

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