BRIEF FROM THE KIDS FIRST
PARENT ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Kids First Parent Association of Canada is a national charitable
organization supporting optimal child well-being and parental child care since
1987. We are non-sectarian, non-partisan, volunteer run. We receive no funding
from government, business, or unions.
The political is the personal. Child-rearing has undergone profound
changes in recent years. These changes make socially sustainable child rearing
unavoidably significantly more costly in labour and other inputs. These high
costs have contributed to an unsustainably low birthrate.
But children’s developmental needs have not changed. The need for
parent-child attachment that is the basis premise of developmental psychology
has been established by empirical studies. There is no short cut, no
‘economies of scale’, when it comes to rearing responsible, contributing,
healthy, ethical adults – what some call “human capital formation”. Since the
1990s, the policies of a false economy have insisted on labour force attachment
at the expense of parent-child attachment.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1 – eliminate preferential funding of non-parental child care by combining
and transferring all funding, provincial transfers, benefits, deductions,
credits, and advocacy-based research funding related to child care, child
rearing, early learning and the like to a Universal Child Benefit paid directly
to parents of children 0-18 through the tax system in the form of a refundable
tax credit or a similar mechanism so the maximum benefit for 2 or 3 children is
not less than the average full-time wage.
2 – allow family taxation (“income splitting”) on the French model
which takes into consideration the number of children as well as adults
supported by family income.
3 – adopt a measure in addition to the GDP to measure true economic
growth, one that includes as productive work unwaged family care work.
THE FALSE ECONOMY
Top policy advisers from the OECD, the RAND Corp, and the World
Bank at the international level, to groups like the Human Early Learning
Partnership (HELP) at UBC, the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada,
Fraser Mustard’s Council for Early Child Development, CUPE and many more have
advanced variously worded Utopian schemes promising that we will all be better
off when children spend less time with their parents, and parents spend more
time as GDP-counted labour supply. But there will never be enough money or
enough staff to provide high quality universal institutional child care. Not
even in Sweden where the OECD and the Swedish government both report a “problem
of quality” in the OECD’s “model” daycare system.
Through the reality-distorting effects of their largely tax-funded
campaign of dis-information consisting of hundreds of non-peer reviewed
reports, such groups have grotesquely distorted child and family policy,
and damaged the prosperity of Canadian families and our nation.
One key example of the dis-information is the claim that for every
$1 ‘invested’ in ‘ECEC’ $2 – over $17 are saved in reduced crime and social
costs later on. Thus HELP claimed in its 2009 presentation to this committee
that Canada will save $3.1 trillion down the road. Nobel Prize Laureate
economist Dr James Heckman was again cited as supportive. However, Heckman
opposes the very universal programs these groups demand, saying there is “no
evidence”. He supports vouchers targeted to very underprivileged families
to use in programs run by community and faith groups, and not in a state-run
system. “An Interview with James Heckman” http://www.kidsfirstcanada.org/Bernard-van-Leer24-29.pdf
Their misogynistic “post maternalist” and “post-familialist” policies have distorted the economy and child rearing. Transferring direct
support to families into heavily subsidized institutional child care and “work
fare” has artificially swollen the labour supply with a forced labour
force. Thus the market price of labour is artificially low, more job
time is needed, families are time-stressed. The social and economic
status of those who do family care work is reduced while others’ status,
income, and power is artificially inflated. The state’s daycare subsidies indirectly
subsidize low wage employers: a form of corporate welfare.
Government policy that undermines children’s developmental needs results in negative outcomes for children and society. But the false economy
– that is the GDP economy - might well grow as we transfer time from the
unwaged family sector to the GDP-counted family replacement sector. The GDP
grows when families spend less time on cooking, chores, and tobogganing in
order to spend more time acquiring job income. Or when families spend more
money on convenience food, electronic entertainment, vehicles, gas. And when
the government spends more on riot squads, police, Ritalin, infections spread
in group child care, remedial education, obesity, suicide, addictions, family
break down, cheating by university students, and of course researching all of
these.
TRUE ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY NEEDS REPRODUCTIVE SUSTAINABILITY
The birth rate has fallen 60% from a peak of 3.9 live births per
woman to about 1.5 today, with 2.2 considered replacement level. The low
birthrate has led to dependence on immigration which has been critiqued
as unsustainable and recently a net cost. Additionally, attracting immigrants creates
injustice and distortions in countries of origin. As we all know, the declining
number of children is a growing economic concern given the increasing care
needs of elders.
But the birthrate does not reflect women’s desired fertility. OECD
data shows desired fertility is over 2.5 children per women in Canada (2000).
Trends and Determinants of Fertility Rates in OECD Countries:
The Role of Policies
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/7/33/35304751.pdf p. 42
An OECD data shows that fertility rates increase with increased
proportion of GDP spent on family cash benefits. Low fertility rates in
OECD countries: facts and policy responses p38 http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/13/38/16587241.pdf
ECONOMIC SUSTAINBILITY FOR FAMILIES: THE HIGH-COST, LOW-STATUS REALITY OF CHILD-REARING TODAY
Though it is routinely said that mothers are “working” more than
ever, this is erroneous. Womens have reduced unwaged work by having fewer
children and thus have more time for GDP sector work. Nevertheless, the
majority of children do not have mothers in full time paid jobs away from
them. Those claiming 70+% of mothers “work outside the home” deliberately
mislead: Labour Force Participation rates include those who: are on
leave, do any paid work at all, do unpaid work in a family enterprise, do paid
work with children present, are looking for a job, etc.
Birth rates are unsustainably low largely because child rearing
is much more labour and cost intensive today. Moreover, GDP-counted
activities are officially honoured while non-GDP counted activities like
child-rearing - once highly esteemed – are economically dis-valued and
politically marginalized. Since women place a higher priority on having
children and working at caring for them, it is women as mothers who are
themselves disvalued by the false economy. This political disvaluing of
mothers ‘trickles down’, further decreasing birthrates.
Counting unwaged child-rearing work in economic measures and
definitions of ‘work’ will provide a correction to these distortions.
2 REASONS FOR CHILD-REARING COST INCREASES
1 – FEAR-DRIVEN SUPERVISION
In past we could ‘go out and play’ from the time we could walk. Our
parents could easily multi-task – read, cook dinner, clean the house, shop, or
mow the lawn while we played in the yard, at the park, down the street, or rode
bikes across town. No worries.
No more. Now, 20 years after a Victoria tot names Michael Dunahy
disappeared from his mother’s side in a park, after Clifford Olson and Paul
Bernardo, after a little Toronto girl was taken from her bed, etc. almost all children
including most teens, are under adult supervision almost constantly. The RCMP
recommended that parents remain within arms reach and not even hold a
conversation while supervising their kids in a park.
Those of us who are less fearful of predators and pedophiles fear
social workers investigating us for neglect. Or we fear traffic: we are advised
not to let a child cross the street alone until age 10.
This represents a radical change in child-rearing. Yes, it takes a
village, but for most, there is no village. This is unlikely to change
soon, regardless of government policy.
Fear and the loss of the village means parents must be with their
children all the time, or we and/or the government must pay someone else to be.
This expenditure of non-GDP counted time or of cash represents a massive
increase to the cost of child-rearing.
For these same reason, walking to school or soccer is seen as
unsafe so driving children is seen a necessity. Hence the 2 or more car family
is the norm and all the cost of that. Hence the use of fast food: shopping,
cooking and cleaning up are exchanged for time needed for supervising, driving
and waiting to drive children back.
2 - MATERIAL & EDUCATIONAL EXPECTATIONS
Whereas in the recent past it was considered normal even for children
in higher income families to share a bedroom; this is no longer the case. Parents
are expected to pay for and provide a computer, cel phone, lessons in the arts,
formal sports. Homework and activities mean children now contribute little to
the household economy. Schools, sports and other groups aggressively promote
trips and ‘retreats’ for kids even in elementary school to ski resorts,
Hawaii, Japan, UK. Most of us resist some of this, but the pressure is high
and the dollar costs are very substantial.
Because children no longer have unsupervised access to the outdoors
they are inside homes when not at supervised activities. This means in-home entertainment:
sedentary activities like tv, computer games, Facebook, etc. These keep
children quiet, controlled, safe and parents calm. Unlike creative play, they
prevent a lot of mess for parents to clean up. As a result, kids get fat, have
poor muscle tone, long term health problems, and damaged development. Much of
the cost of remedying these ills falls to government.
Add to this the expectation that parents will pay costs of
post-secondary studies.
PROBLEMS WITH PREFERENTIALLY SUBSIDIZING NON-PARENTAL CHILD CARE AND ESPECIALLY INSTITUTIONAL CHILD CARE
Low usage: Only 14.9% of children 6 months to 5 years are in
daycare centres (Stats Can 2006).
Supply exceeds demand for daycare centres: the majority of
daycare centres reported vacancies. You Bet I Care! Report
1, 2000, pp. 163-168 http://action.web.ca/home/cfwwb/attach/ybic_report_1.pdf
Toronto daycare centres with subsidized spaces have a vacancy
rate of about 7% http://www.kidsfirstcanada.org/supply-demand.htm.
Low preference: 9 of 10 parents prefer parental child care,
daycare centres are ranked choice #5 (Vanier Inst 2004)
Schedules: institutional child care (daycare centres, all
day kindergarten) cater to those with 9-5 Mon-Fri jobs outside the home.
Direct costs: institutional care necessitates costly inputs
that other care forms do not: buildings, land, training, inspections, policing,
bureaucracy, sanitation due contagion, etc.
Costs related to worse outcomes for physical health, cognitive
ability, behaviours:
The very rigourously peer-reviewed National Institute for Child
Health and Human Development study of child care effects found that more time
in centre care, even of high quality, was uniquely directly associated with
increased negative behavioural outcomes up to at least age 15 when it is
described as increased “risk taking” behaviour. “Are
there long-term effects of early child care?” Child Development, (2007) https://secc.rti.org/abstracts.cfm?abstract=87
Sweden’s National Board of Health & Welfare says daycare children
are 6.78 times more likely to be sick than children in parental care.
p.15 Smitta i förskolan (Contagion in preschool) http://www.fhi.se/Documents/Vart-uppdrag/BoU/Uppslagsverket/Smitta_f%C3%B6rskoa.pdf
A prize-winning peer reviewed report on Quebec daycare published in
the Journal of Political Economy states: "We uncover striking
evidence that children are worse off in a variety of behavioral and health
dimensions, ranging from aggression to motor-social skills to illness. Our
analysis also suggests that the new childcare program led to more hostile,
less consistent parenting, worse parental health, and lower-quality parental
relationships…The consistency of the results suggests that more access to childcare
is bad for these children.” Universal Childcare, Maternal Labor
Supply and Family Well-Being p1,4 http://www.chass.utoronto .ca/cepa/childcare.oct2005.final2.pdf
After over 30 years of preferentially funding daycare centres,
Swedish 15 year olds score at or below the OECD average on PISA tests,
and considerably below Canadian teens near the top.
Peer-reviewed studies report harmful raised cortisol levels in children at daycare. Cortisol is a key factor in brain development, emotions,
immunity. "Morning-to-afternoon increases in cortisol concentrations for
infants and toddlers at child care age differences and behavioural
correlates." Child Development, 74(4)