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Put up your hands if you know where they have lower rates in child poverty and rank higher than Canada in gender equality?
If you said France, Iceland and Sweden you would be right.
And why are they doing better than us in those areas? Because they all have publicly funded child care.
We don't have to look that far afield to see results of a well funded child care system. Quebec has seen the percentage of women in the work force and enrolled post secondary education become the highest in Canada since that province brought in publicly funded child care. Its system serves 70 per cent of the province's preschool children at $7 a day per child.
I can hear governments say that funding of child care will have to wait due to the awful economic times. This is exactly the time to have a national publicly funded child care program implemented. Right now, in Canada, according to an article from Citizens for Public Justice with statistics from Statistics Canada, child care is rarely accessible or affordable.
Only 12 per cent of preschool-aged children have access to regulated child care space. The cost of one child could be as high as $800 a month.
I think that might be an old stat as the figure I keep hearing is $1,200 a month or higher. According to the same article written by Mariel Angus, "affordable, accessible quality child care can help promote women's equality by assisting them with their domestic caring responsibilities and enabling them to engage in the paid workforce if they choose. It can strengthen their economic security, help them to live free from poverty and give them more choices in deciding how their children are cared for."
I have yet to understand why economists seldom promote a national child care plan. Would it not help bring women into the workforce? Into post secondary education?
Look at the stats from Quebec again; it's pretty obvious that it does. Would this not be a good time to ensure more women can work or go back to school, especially in times where people are losing their jobs?
Angus points out that women are more likely to work part time or take on contract work with less security because of the lack of available affordable child care. If you are a single mother, your options are even more limited. According to a young mom who I know, finding affordable quality day care is next to impossible.
In Toronto, there was a waiting list of 12 to 24 months for any kind of child care. Unless it was subsidized, it was so expensive that few single moms could afford it.
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Moving back to the North to be near family, she discovered that on Manitoulin Island, there was very little subsidized child care available in the community. So trying to go back to school and even finding a part-time job in Sudbury seemed to be an option, but again it fell apart because of the lack of affordable child care. She was told there was a waiting list of 6-12 months and if she could find child care, then she could apply for a subsidy.
This is one example of how difficult it is for someone who is trying to contribute to society, who was able to attend university, but it all hinged on affordable quality child care.
I would bet her example is one of many women out there. Is it any wonder that Canada has such a high rate of child poverty? Would it not make more sense to ensure that women who are trying to get ahead would have help instead of being told at every turn that there is no child care available. Then, of course, to put food on the table and pay their rent they have to look at government assistance.
Would it not make more sense to get women into the workforce and school so they don't have to rely on assistance? Of course it does, but apparently, our federal and provincial governments seem to all be short-term thinkers. If we want to look down the road at what would be best for society, it would be to provide subsidized day care now, instead of watching our welfare rolls expand at every turn.
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- reprinted from The Sudbury Star