OPINION

Steve Walters: Avoid the Canadian curse of universal day care

Steve Walters, The Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. July 26, 2006
 
BALTIMORE, Maryland, U.S.A. - Having trouble finding good, cheap day care for the kiddies? What if the government made licensed care available to all for $5 a day. Wouldnt that be sweet?

Not so fast. Before you write to your congressional representative demanding such a program, you might want to consider how it has worked out for the Canadian province of Quebec.

Its dogma among feminists and other left-leaning intellectuals that an enlightened society would liberate young mothers from the shackles of child rearing by making day care cheap and available to all. So, back in the late 90s, Quebeckers did exactly that: Starting in 1997, the Quebec Family Policy law guaranteed government-regulated daycare slots to pre-kindergarteners for a parental contribution of $5 per child per day (since raised to $7), with the rest of the bill footed by taxpayers.

Enough time has elapsed to see the effects of this generous universal day care entitlement. Recently, three eminent economists, Michael Baker (University of Toronto), Jonathan Gruber (MIT) and Kevin Milligan (University of British Columbia) reported their findings under the aegis of the prestigious National Bureau of Economic Research.

Some of the results do not surprise. The new subsidy yielded a one-third increase in licensed day care use in Quebec, enabling as feminists had hoped and predicted many more mothers of small children to join the paid labor force. Once the program was fully phased in, about two-thirds of Quebec mothers of children age 4 or younger worked outside the home (an increase of about 15 percent in just a few years), and most worked longer hours and more weeks per year.

So, thanks to the taxpayers, many moms (and their spouses) could enjoy higher disposable incomes. But what about the children? Its another feminist article of faith that day care is actually good for children, helping to socialize them and make them more self-reliant.

Thanks to Canadas National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, which gathers detailed data on the health and welfare of a large sample of children as they grow up, we now have a neat test of this assumption.

The results should send shivers of fear up the spines of universal daycare advocates. Baker, Gruber, and Milligan find strong evidence that the Quebec experiment adversely affected the lives of young children. Specifically, children showed more hyperactivity, anxiety and aggressive behavior. Children also scored lower on motor and social skills tests and suffered from more physical illnesses since the program began.

Whats more, these effects are not small. The authors calculated that program participation decreased childrens motor and social skills scores at least 8 percent; increased incidence of hyperactivity at least 18 percent and anxiety at least 63 percent; increased frequency of ear infections at least 52 percent and nose/throat infections 156 percent; Quebec toddlers aggressiveness scores on the survey roughly doubled.

Even more surprising, perhaps, are indications that the Family Policy produced some negative side effects for parents relationship with their children and even on parents health. Quebeckers scores on the surveys hostile/ineffective parenting index rose 9 percent and their consistent parenting scores fell 4 percent. The frequency with which Quebec dads reported themselves in excellent health fell 6 percent, while moms reported increased incidence of depression and both spouses claimed diminished relationship satisfaction.

In sum, Quebecs Family Policy is a classic lose-lose proposition: a rip-off for taxpayers and a mixed blessing at best to the programs intended beneficiaries. We can thank Quebec parents for being the canary in the mine and should vow not to repeat their error.

Steve Walters is a Professor of Economics at Loyola College in Maryland, U.S.A.. Contact him at swalters@loyola.edu .