I am sorry, but I don’t understand something.
Why should it be inexpensive to have children? And I am not talking $$.
Is Quebec trying to boost its population?
Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program (2015) [pdf]
31–40 of 70 posts
Re: Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program (2015) [pdf]
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
The price of something being higher than you'd prefer does not mean there is a market failure. Child care is not a public good and there are not obvious externalities. Excessive regulation might be a factor but that is not market failure. The fact that the unsubsidized cost of child care is higher than some parents are willing to pay may just be evidence that there are no efficiencies to be gained for those parents.…
> The price of something being higher than you'd prefer does not mean there is a market failure. The price of something being much higher than the cost of production is a market failure, in this case the market has failed to produce enough supply. If the cost of wheat production remained constant but the cheapest you could get a loaf for was $50 would you not consider that a market failure?
No, these are not necessarily examples of market failure. I'd suggest reading up on the concept. A large and long lived discrepancy between the price of something and its cost of production might be an example of market failure, perhaps due to a monopoly. It might also be due to government failure (excessive regulation, subsidies, tax policies, etc.). A temporary discrepancy is not market failure at all, it's how markets work.
In the case of child care it is not even clear this situation exists, most of the reasons you listed earlier were reasons why it is expensive to supply child care and not evidence of excess profits.
Re: Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program (2015) [pdf]
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
The authors don't appear to be directly arguing that (at least not in the conclusion, i didn't read the body of the paper) The authors seem to be arguing that development of non-cognitive skills is important for long-term health, life satisfaction, etc, and that childcare programs that do not measure and attempt to support development of non-cognitive skills may therefore be somewhat harmful. It is possible that some…
Yes I think they are saying the lack of non-cognitive skills appears to be what is lacking. But there does seem to be some evidence that those who are in parental care better develop these skills and have better outcomes. I think the tricky part will be demonstrating how to provide these non-cognitive skills outside of parental care. Economically we are far better off with children in care and parents in the work for…
> Economically we are far better off with children in care and parents in the work force but this may not pay off in the long term if future generations fail to perform in life.
Who is "we" in this statement? The parents? Society? I think whether it makes sense varies from family to family. When my daughter was born, my wife and I did the math and it made zero sense for her to go back to work and for us to pay for child care. The cost of child care was far more than she could possibly bring home. Plus, we have the (apparently old fashioned) belief that an attentive and caring parent would do a better job raising her than some rando child care worker who's trying to corral 10 other kids all day.
Re: Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program (2015) [pdf]
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think there's enough evidence to suggest that stay-at-home dad would result in worse outcome of children. So, it would be fair to criticize men if men aren't sharing the burden of raising the children 50/50 (after the first year or so of nursing period is over).
The nursing period is also not a differentiating factor. The long-term benefit from breastfeeding is very thin, likely not even a couple of IQ points if that: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/139/4/e2016184... ; https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-abo...
I don't mean that the nursing period is so much a differentiating factor for the outcome, but rather that if the parents chose to breastfeed, that is one and about the only biologically differentiated role between a mother and a father, thus needs to be accounted for in some way. Ideally men should take more of other child caring burdens during the breastfeeding, but that depends on various other practical factors, so I wouldn't call men up for failing to do that.
Re: Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program (2015) [pdf]
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
The authors don't appear to be directly arguing that (at least not in the conclusion, i didn't read the body of the paper) The authors seem to be arguing that development of non-cognitive skills is important for long-term health, life satisfaction, etc, and that childcare programs that do not measure and attempt to support development of non-cognitive skills may therefore be somewhat harmful. It is possible that some…
> [these findings] provide strong support for the argument that non-cognitive development is a crucial determinant of the long-term success of child care programs. Okay so non-cognitive development is important and clearly lacking in government supported child-care. I think the more interesting question is: Why is there such a difference between government supported child-care and parental care? Not all stay-at-home…
> Okay so non-cognitive development is ... clearly lacking in government supported child-care
[citation needed]
The study did not make any such claim; it only claimed that non-cognitive development is important. One would need to study the non-cognitive development across various child-care providers, measuring by price, caregiver education level, curriculum, and a wide variety of other factors to determine which (if any) affect non-cognitive development.
The problem could be as simple as improving the toys, games, and learning materials provided to the kids or as intractable as kids requiring a 1:1 caregiver (aka a stay-at-home parent). Or anywhere in-between.
Re: Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program (2015) [pdf]
#36I am sorry, but I don’t understand something. Why should it be inexpensive to have children? And I am not talking $$. Is Quebec trying to boost its population?
[deleted]
Re: Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program (2015) [pdf]
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes I think they are saying the lack of non-cognitive skills appears to be what is lacking. But there does seem to be some evidence that those who are in parental care better develop these skills and have better outcomes. I think the tricky part will be demonstrating how to provide these non-cognitive skills outside of parental care. Economically we are far better off with children in care and parents in the work for…
I have some real cognitive dissonance with the mixed desires for women to have complete equality in the workplace, and children who are perfectly cared for as though they were in their mother's arms, yet the children can't come to work in many cases for very practical reasons (highly intellectually demanding work settings, high risk work settings, etc). And at the same time, it's all men's fault.
> And at the same time, it's all men's fault.
Where is this coming from? Are you grinding a personal axe here? No one said anything about men's responsibilities or lack thereof so I don't quite understand the point you are making.
Re: Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program (2015) [pdf]
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes I think they are saying the lack of non-cognitive skills appears to be what is lacking. But there does seem to be some evidence that those who are in parental care better develop these skills and have better outcomes. I think the tricky part will be demonstrating how to provide these non-cognitive skills outside of parental care. Economically we are far better off with children in care and parents in the work for…
> Economically we are far better off with children in care and parents in the work force Any data to support that? Given that there is a deadweight economic loss due to taxes, if both parents work and the income from the second parent doesn’t exceed the cost of child care + taxes, it would seem that in many cases, two parents working could actually be a net loss for the economy as the family might have less disposabl…
Taking time off from your career puts you behind your peers. That's no surprise. If women take time off to raise young children that hurts their long-term earnings. Again, no surprise.
If we want to frame it in purely economic terms vis-a-vis government:
Does the long-term increase in taxes paid by working mothers cover or exceed government outlays to provide childcare, especially in the early pre-K4 years?
Secondarily is there any negative effect on the children and if so can those effects be mitigated?
The study seems to indicate it is a net-win for the government because high-cost childcare only happens for 1-3 years but the earning power increase lasts the rest of a woman's career. I presume rational government policy would attempt to make free childcare tax neutral in this case.
In alternative terms you could see this as the government making a short-term (3 year) loan to cover childcare while being paid back in the form of higher taxes paid by the beneficiaries over the next 20-30 years.
Whether this makes sense for an individual couple is another matter. Whether the government should encourage new daycares or people to train as childcare providers is also another matter that bears some similarities to the universal healthcare arguments (eg that the government would want to encourage more people to train as doctors and nurses since the expected demand for services would increase, though true believers in the free market should expect the market to take care of such problems).
Re: Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program (2015) [pdf]
#39I am sorry, but I don’t understand something. Why should it be inexpensive to have children? And I am not talking $$. Is Quebec trying to boost its population?
The tragically austere reasoning would be to reduce stress on caregivers in order to make improved children who make more efficient workers that are cheaper to run due to lower healthcare costs. :)
Population increases or reduction are more complex than simply a function of cost. They are also a function of time and quality of life. People in developed societies tend to have fewer children. I'd be inclined to believe that the absolute cost of raising a child in a developed country is orders of magnitude more than in an underdeveloped one. For instance. In general I will contend that we can support caregivers for altruistic reasons and yet not necessarily increase population growth. Depends.
Re: Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program (2015) [pdf]
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes I think they are saying the lack of non-cognitive skills appears to be what is lacking. But there does seem to be some evidence that those who are in parental care better develop these skills and have better outcomes. I think the tricky part will be demonstrating how to provide these non-cognitive skills outside of parental care. Economically we are far better off with children in care and parents in the work for…
> Economically we are far better off with children in care and parents in the work force but this may not pay off in the long term if future generations fail to perform in life. Who is "we" in this statement? The parents? Society? I think whether it makes sense varies from family to family. When my daughter was born, my wife and I did the math and it made zero sense for her to go back to work and for us to pay for ch…
Sorry, that point has generated more heat than I expected. What I was meaning here (and said poorly) is that for society specialisation seems to work out with a net overall increase in productivity. If some specialise in childcare it should free others up to specialise in other fields and allow those specialised in childcare to look after more children than stay at home parents would.
I also should have stated that this is an assumption I was basing my next statements on, not a statement of fact. This was also just a generalisation used to reason from. I'm not trying to speak for anyone's individual situation.
I share your belief that a caring parent is going to be better at raising children than a care worker. I would choose this option myself if I were to have children regardless of the economics (here in New Zealand childcare is heavily subsidised by the government, so the numbers would be a little different).