Subsidized child care will raise Canada's birth rate
Times Colonist - Victoria
August 14, 2007
By: Janet Bagnall
EXCERPT

Last month's census data confirmed several long-standing and problematic trends…

Canada has always had the option of trying to encourage a higher birth rate to maintain its population, yet only Quebec has gone down that road.

Canada by and large does not provide inexpensive or accessible child care.

Canadian parents, excluding Quebecers, pay on average twice as much for child care as Europeans. Barely one in five single Canadian parents has access to subsidized care.

Despite the fact that Quebec's system of generous state support for parents has proved successful in raising its birth rate, other provinces and the federal government have all pointedly -- and wrongly -- ignored it as an example to follow.

Not only does state support work in Quebec, it has proved its worth in most places where it is tried. In a study published this spring, economist Kevin Daly of Goldman Sachs dismissed as a myth the idea that women in developed countries must choose either to work or have children.

According to a report in the Economist, Daly's study compared levels of women's labour-force participation and family size country by country.

He found that in societies that made it easier for women to combine paid employment with children -- in Sweden, for example -- the rate of women's employment and the birth rate were both high, although not among the highest in the world, of course.

Large numbers of women would work, or work more, if affordable child care were available, Daly said. Yet many countries make it nearly impossible for women to combine work and family.

These countries not only fail to provide child care, their tax systems actively penalize the second earner in the family, usually the woman…

It's hardly surprising, therefore, as Daly said in a BBC interview, that the result is low fertility and low female employment.

By undervaluing what women can contribute, countries are penalizing their overall potential for growth, Daly said.

He calculates that if women's rate of employment rose to the same level as men's and if gross domestic product rose in proportion to employment -- a perfectly plausible scenario -- a country's GDP would grow….

High employment rates for women would also help countries with aging populations cope with a shortage of workers.

With more people in the workforce, the ratio of worker to retiree would also rise, an inestimable help in paying for the services and pensions of the retired.

Canada has a record number of people nearing retirement, according to the census…

In Canada, much of the political opposition to subsidized child care and generous tax breaks to working mothers is ideological.

Opposition to it has been couched in recent years in terms of offering "choice." But in fact, the choice is between a small cash supplement and a functional, fully funded system of dependable care.

It's not hard to guess which will help boost women's employment and the birth rate.

Canada will need all the help it can get to weather the coming economic crunch -- even if it means funding child care.