Is there a market failure in child care?
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Is there a market failure in child care?
1–10 of 127 posts
Re: Is there a market failure in child care?
#2The failure to me seems in outsourcing your child to a daycare, vs parents having flexible schedules to actually take care of your kid (either 1 with PT job or staying home FT, or both with flexible jobs). I understand this isn't popular in our culture these days, but I imagine it has many positive outcomes for the child and family.
Re: Is there a market failure in child care?
#3The failure to me seems in outsourcing your child to a daycare, vs parents having flexible schedules to actually take care of your kid (either 1 with PT job or staying home FT, or both with flexible jobs). I understand this isn't popular in our culture these days, but I imagine it has many positive outcomes for the child and family.
Parents never did this when both of them worked.
Grandparents did this.
Unfortunately, these days, parents can't afford to keep living near the grandparents (because home prices have gone up too much, or because the grandparents are in a dead-end no-jobs town).
Your options are to fix the housing market (By which, I mean, utterly destroy the value of existing homes[1]), or to make it possible for a single breadwinner to feed a family again (again, this is largely driven by the cost of housing) or to make due with the status quo.
[1] That's going to be hugely popular among demographics that vote. /s
Re: Is there a market failure in child care?
#4How about just a tax deduction for qualified childcare costs up to a certain amount?
Parents usually want to vet their child care and not just ship their child to whichever person is offering the lowest rates for the day.
Re: Is there a market failure in child care?
#5The failure to me seems in outsourcing your child to a daycare, vs parents having flexible schedules to actually take care of your kid (either 1 with PT job or staying home FT, or both with flexible jobs). I understand this isn't popular in our culture these days, but I imagine it has many positive outcomes for the child and family.
I’d love to do that but my software job is the thing keeping us afloat. And part time seems to not be a thing for devs
Re: Is there a market failure in child care?
#6Market failure? The demand for child care is a social and economic failure. Stay-at-home parents are no longer feasible for most families.
Re: Is there a market failure in child care?
#7The failure to me seems in outsourcing your child to a daycare, vs parents having flexible schedules to actually take care of your kid (either 1 with PT job or staying home FT, or both with flexible jobs). I understand this isn't popular in our culture these days, but I imagine it has many positive outcomes for the child and family.
Parents never did this when both of them worked. Grandparents did this. Unfortunately, these days, parents can't afford to keep living near the grandparents (because home prices have gone up too much, or because the grandparents are in a dead-end no-jobs town). Your options are to fix the housing market (By which, I mean, utterly destroy the value of existing homes[1]), or to make it possible for a single breadwinner…
Grandparents are now paid out via violence against the children (aka taxes) once they grow up. Why would they participate in raising the kid when the unspoken quid-pro-quo is no longer present and their benefits are guaranteed? There used to be significant bilateral benefit.
Re: Is there a market failure in child care?
#8The failure to me seems in outsourcing your child to a daycare, vs parents having flexible schedules to actually take care of your kid (either 1 with PT job or staying home FT, or both with flexible jobs). I understand this isn't popular in our culture these days, but I imagine it has many positive outcomes for the child and family.
Pretty much. Parents in my neighborhood pooled together and made sure that one of them always had a day off to pick up the kids from school and home and feed them until the other parents got off work.
Re: Is there a market failure in child care?
#9Hilarious to call it a market failure. If you deregulate childcare, something or another will appear at every price point. You may not like some of those solutions, but they'll exist.
Re: Is there a market failure in child care?
#10The failure to me seems in outsourcing your child to a daycare, vs parents having flexible schedules to actually take care of your kid (either 1 with PT job or staying home FT, or both with flexible jobs). I understand this isn't popular in our culture these days, but I imagine it has many positive outcomes for the child and family.
Working parents send their kids to daycare out of necessity, it’s not a matter of being popular. Two working parents is also a necessity for many economically. Not everybody has the income and thus the convenience of having a stay at home parent.
In your words, this is a failure of the parent, but I disagree.