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Why Child Care Is So Expensive

theatlantic.com

41–50 of 522 posts

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#41
It really comes down to the ratio. Our state has a 4-1 ratio for infants (which is entirely reasonable). You are basically paying for 1/4 of a person's time. If you want to put them into a daycare where the worker is adequately paid, that's $6000 a year alone, let alone overhead costs for facilities/admin.

No matter who pays for it, raising children is time consuming. And time is becoming more valuable.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#42

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…

> The dirty secret is that most women work because they HAVE TO. It's not a choice.

My anecdata is quite opposite. Women having remorse for leaving children in child care, but they can't stand staying at home. They feel lonely.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#43
post #4

We definitely felt this. My wife ended up quitting her job when we had our first because all of the child care options we investigated were going to require basically her entire after-tax income to support. It only made sense if she was planning to grow her career and just ride out the daycare for 5 years until the kid went to school, but even then it's contingent on not having another kid during that time. At the en…

If she did have a career she wanted to continue, the calculation is pretty strong on the 'riding it out until school'. You have to count ALL the salary you are going to make for the next 30-40 years of working, because sitting out for 5 years will have an effect on your income your entire career.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd interpret these results with a grain of salt. They are, after all, culturally (and circumstantially) bound. If making money wasn't so important to raising kids, then women might express quite different preferences in partners. I believe there is some evidence for this if you look at mate preference in nations with more social support.

Just anecdotally, women seem to be interested in men who excel in some area, not just in salary. Successful musician's, artists, scientists, etc all do pretty well, even if they aren't top earners.

I guess what I'm cautioning against is reading your "studies" as suggesting that women don't find lower earners "sexy." Much simpler economic circumstances could plausibly explain the higher rate of divorce.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#45
post #7

It doesn't have to be this way. Québec has had subsidized daycare for almost 25 years, and the program literally pays for itself (and more!) via increased income taxes from parents that would have otherwise chosen to stay at home. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/12/affordable-daycare-su... > In Montreal, Quebec’s largest city, a day of child care cost on average $10 in 2016 > Quebec’s program, which introduced lo…

I'm not sure this is the strongest case you could make for saying this ought to be the responsibility of the government. If people can make more working than childcare costs, then they can make their own decision about how to invest their own time and money. Why does the government need to pay for this, if they argument is ultimately that the wages of women now working is what ends up paying the cost of the service?

I am generally not one to rail against the government running efficient programs for general welfare, I support single payer healthcare in the US and many progressive policies. I do however think we need to consider the line where anything you buy has the government involved in re-distributing resources to make it cheaper for people with less money.

Ultimately, it might be good to allow economic forces to produce an economy again where single income households can afford to raise children, regardless of the gender of the parent who is earning an income. More work doesn't always mean societies or families ended up better off, parents spending time raising kids should not be seen as just sunken cost because we could have gotten tax money out of them.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the parent comment is saying that his paternal instinct is clashing with society and culture.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#47

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…

The US consumer was massively expanding (mostly) his credit during the 50s-80s. This is the American "Golden Age". There's no further room to expand credit -- we tried it in mid 90s-00s and it didn't work out.

There was never a time anywhere in the history of the world where one working man could work a low-skilled laborer's job and comfortably provide for a family of four.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#48
post #21

This may be somewhat off-topic, but I'm often surprised that leftist policies like the article advocates are often proposed at a national level? Why is this? Why not propose a state-sponsored child-care system in a leftist state - California, Washington, Massachusetts, etc. I'm not trying to start a war here, simply genuinely interested why people on the left push national social programs versus propose them in very…

This is just a guess, but in America basically all taxes are taken at the federal level. It's easier to move that money around then add on state taxes.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#49

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.

This doesn't make economic sense.... 'doubling supply' is what economic growth is.... producing more should be balanced out with people consuming more, which is what a healthy economy does. This is like arguing that the invention of the assembly line caused inflation because you could produce too much. You contradict yourself by saying 'double supply' and 'inflationary effects'... increasing supply of a commodity (in…

It makes perfect economic sense: it's a simple supply and demand curve. Increasing the number of workers decreases their value. The only confounding factor is whether the increase in workers increases the speed at which the economy grows/ I'd guess it probably does, but not enough to offset the downward pressure on wages.

Re: Why Child Care Is So Expensive

#50
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

wait, are you saying that staying at home with the kids is not work?! It is arguably a harder job than most white collar jobs out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWcJZ210AaM

Something can be, at the same time, both more work and more enjoyable than office work.
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