See text below.
EXCERPTS
Running late again to fetch little Ava from daycare? A behavioural economist has just given parents an intriguing new excuse: Tell the teacher you're suffering a crisis of morality.
The fines that most child-care centres now charge &em; typically $1 per minute &em; to discourage adults from being tardy may actually promote lateness, researchers have found.
"Certain cues can switch moral behaviour on or off," says Samuel Bowles, director of the Behavioural Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. "Charging for things often switches off moral behaviour."
Bowles concluded that fines can undermine a parent's sense of ethical obligation to be on time for the teachers. And lateness becomes "just another commodity" to purchase.
Bowles's research assigns a moral measure to the incentive principle raised in Freakonomics, which cited a groundbreaking study on daycare fines in Israel. Shortly after six centres in Haifa began charging late parents, the experiment backfired spectacularly. Parents reacted by coming even later.
…
Cheryl De Gras has worked in daycare centres across Toronto since 1981. Many charge $5 or $10 for the first minute and $1 for every minute thereafter.
"I had one family who were routinely late and I think it's just something that they built into their budget," says De Gras, co-president of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care.
"I know that there have been situations that are not emergencies, just miscommunications by parents, where the late fee totalled $60 or $70."
Neighbourhood demographics often point to the worst offenders.
"They're likely the same people who park illegally and if they get a parking ticket, well that's just the price of parking wherever you feel like," Bowles says.
Uri Gneezy, a professor of economics and strategies at the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego who co-authored the Haifa study, warns of the risks of imposing too small a fine.
"Something funny happens when you move from zero fine to a small fine," Gneezy says. "Suddenly, we can decide if the price is low enough to come late."
Gneezy shares a personal story about picking up his own daughters from a daycare in Haifa. Running behind schedule from a lunch, he had to "drive like a crazy" to pick up the girls on time. The manager at the centre charged him $3.
"The next time we were late, I didn't drive like a crazy. It's not worth risking your life for $3," he says.
…
There is not a hint of bitterness in Pierik's voice.
"I know the teachers there are so busy they have their own families to get home to.
"So yeah, I feel guilty if I'm there at even 5 to 6 p.m. I personally don't like my kids to be the last ones there. I feel it's kind of sad for them to see all their friends leave."
Some daycare centres in Toronto started introducing fines in the early 1980s, not just as a punitive measure but to help pay for the overtime incurred when teachers are forced to stay behind with children whose parents haven't arrived.
"There's nothing in the child-care budget that would allow for unscheduled overtime," explains Kerry McCuaig, a researcher with the Child Care Education Foundation.
"The idea of $1 a minute was supposed to be enough that it was punitive and it was also supposed to compensate the child-care staff. If you stayed for a half an hour, you're getting paid $30, which would be double-time for most child-care workers."
McCuaig notes the rate at many of the centres that started charging $1 a minute more than 25 years ago has not gone up since.
In the end, Bowles, the behavioural economist, advises people to let human decency be their guide.
"The knowledge that comes from being a good mother or a good businessman is probably a lot more sophisticated than the view of economics, which is charge a price for everything and see if you can get selfish people to behave right."
- reprinted from the Toronto Star