I’m asking that question over at PollieGraph, riffing off Paul Keating’s comments yesterday, and examining the choices Labor has made on childcare policy. The other question I want to pose is when did Labor forget “Social Democracy 101″?
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I’m asking that question over at PollieGraph, riffing off Paul Keating’s comments yesterday, and examining the choices Labor has made on childcare policy. The other question I want to pose is when did Labor forget “Social Democracy 101″?
I think one of the questions on the Citizenship test should be:
Q. What was the Harvester judgement, who handed it down and when?
On the specific issue of childcare, it’s also the case that a failure to critique the commodification of childcare from the left creates a space big enough to drive a bus through which is all too often filled by family values conservatives who seize on the ills of profit-driven childcare as a stick with which to beat working mothers.
OTOH, some feminists critics point out that the institutional treadmill for many children, which starts within the first months of life, can have negative consequences, particularly for children under the age of two left in centres with poorly qualified, insufficent numbers of staff and characterised by sub-standard conditions - all of which a market-based system requires in order to continue increasing profits.
jinmaro,
Statements like “…all of which a market-based system requires in order to continue increasing profits” disclose such a bare-faced ignorance of markets that it really beggars belief.
Those sorts of conditions are much more likely to occur under State-directed systems where the money does not follow consumer demand than under any free market system, where businesses can (and should) fail if they do not attract customers.
“the profit motive places a disincentive in terms of price for providers to treat childcare as more of an educative function and to properly skill workers and equip centres.”
This is precisely what my partner and others like her have been arguing for quite a while now. I’m very pleased to see these issues being raised here. Assuming that 0-5 years is a critical period in terms of development, it may turn out to have been a huge mistake to let this pan out as it has.
Have a think for a while about how the childcare market actually operates, Andrew. You’ve got demand exceeding supply, and one cashed up player taking over smaller centres, with seemingly little interest in meeting the demand because it enables them to continue to make large profits as well as taking advantage of government subsidies to individuals to bid up its prices.
Exactly, Mark, it is about the way in which the market/government nexus is operating in this particular context to produce poor outcomes, and not about those larger and more abstract questions.
Agreed, Klaus, but it also points to the fact that abstract theory about the efficiency and operation of markets often has only a tendentious relationship with what goes on in real markets!
Mark, large profits encourage new entrants and as a result markets tend to meet demand better than governments. Of course, you are right that demand is currently outstripping supply, and we are seeing prices rise as a result. In this context, there may be a role for government in terms of expanding the supply side (which seems to be the focus of the ALP’s childcare policies).
Speaking more generally, markets are not magical systems that effortlessly deliver the best of everything to everyone at all times, but they simply do not function in the way that jinmaro apparently believes they function. The profit motive creates an incentive to reduce costs, but not so much that the good or service the subject of the transaction falls below the standard demanded by the consumer. And of course, to protect very vulnerable consumers, there may be a role for government to mandate minimum standards and provide state subsidies as compensation.
Cheers
BBB
It also signals a false (or at least misleading) dichotomy between state-directed and free market systems, which is especially irrelevant to discussing this situation, because it is already about the imbrication of private and government agents in a single system.
That’s right Mark & Klaus, which is why not-for-profit childcare can also be abysmal, quality-wise.
And Andrew, ever ridden in a private bus and compared it to a public bus? The private buses I’ve had the misfortune to use are of vastly inferior quality, people get bounced around in them dreadfully (wha, poor pensioners and the elderly go flying, they’re much more expensive than private buses and they’re driven (in my admittedly limited experience. almost universally by sociopaths). But they exist on routes not covered by public transport and so people have no choice but to use them.
BBB, jinmaro is broadly correct about this situation, and this is in line with Mark’s argument in the linked piece at New Matilda. What is the service being provided exactly? Are the parents or the children the consumers? These are important questions and do not have straightforward answers as they might in other industries. The drift is away from the treatment of childcare as an educative function, as Mark suggests. Parents may be complicit in this because their primary concern is care, not quality care or education. While demand for care and supervision will be met by the current market based arrangements, the quality of that care is profoundly important as well in terms of development as people, which is what the research that jinmaro alludes to suggests.
BBB, perhaps you’d care to explain why child care suppliers then have consistently under-invested both in the skills of their employees and in the facilities provided. Customers have little option when services are provided in a fixed geographical location which corresponds to their need and there is no competition available in that area (and usually long “waiting lists” for available places). It defeats the point of childcare, after all, if you have to drive across town to access the services of a “competitor”.
Crossed with Klaus, but I agree with his points.
Klaus K, the parents are the consumers. The notion that parents’ primary concern is not ‘quality’ care is absurd on its face. In any case, if parents value ‘care’ above ‘education’, then that is what childcare services should reflect. Parents cannot be ‘complicit’ in their own value judgments about the form of a service being delivered to them for the benefit of their own children.
Now I totally agree that the quality of childcare is of paramount importantance. Happily, this is precisely the attitude of Australian parents. No doubt this is why Australian parents seem to have no problem with state and federal governments overseeing quality standards in state-subsidised childcare centres.
BBB
andrew,
it’s your argument that flies in the face of surveys which show that children in corporate childcare are getting poorer outcomes than those children who are lucky enough to find places in community based and council run centres, where surpluses are used to pay for higher staff ratios, better qualified staff, better programming, better quality food, rather than these surpluses flowing into the pockets of shareholders.
in a survey of childcare workers - 1 in 5 of those employed in corporate centres would not even send their own children to these places!!
this government’s policy on childcare, at the very time this country desperately needed to expand this now essential service, was to subsidise parent’s fees - that’s it.
there was NO capital investment, there was NO money for local councils to build new centres - nothing!
that one private operator saw this opportunity, and starting buying up community based centres and small owner-operator centres, and using generous govt. subsidies to run down costs in their own centres, and going to market (promising to continue the same policy) - and has since expanded their share in this sector, which had limited supply and incredible demand - is a story, which in any civilised society, would be viewed with the scorn, it deserves.
that all taypayers are now forking out hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidise the profits of ABC Learning shareholders, rather than paying for training, higher wages, higher staff ratios is a national disgrace.
directors and shareholders of corporate childcare companies are short-changing the babies and children of this country with second rate services, and are right up there with James Hardie directors and shareholders as far as i’m concerned.
government regulations - quote that to the babies who are waiting to have their nappies changed & fed, put back to sleep - in a 5:1 babies room, with a 19 year old unqualified casual carer on an AWA, whose supposed to clean the centre, after her shift.
BBB, parents negotiate a hierarchy of needs for both themselves and their children. The imperative to work, and simultaneously for their children to be safe and secure, means that care and supervision tend to be prioritised over quality care and education. The way in which the system operates means that parents are often forced to accept this hierarchy, and become complicit in undermining the developmental needs of their children. This may be absurd, but it is the way in which the system currently operates.
actually, these buses double in the am and pm as school buses which is perhaps why they are fitted out with plastic and other lightweight materials. Are they also less safe than “normal” buses designed to more comfortably transport adults? And parents are entrusting children to these inferior forms of transport?
btw, the private bus company in Sydney I used to use to get to work, (before I got my motor scooter - never had a car licence) was constantly been complained about by passengers, according to the local press, and one driver recently ended up killing an elderly woman as she was trying to alight from the bus and another one killed another car driver after plowing through a red light.
These drivers were not well paid, probably less than public sector drivers, and they were angry people, man. People used to complain too that they would speed up when they saw them waiting at bus stops and refused to stop when passengers wanted to alight. Even happened to me a coupla times. Bastards! Many of these drivers just didn’t like passengers, it seems!
Mark, to respond to your last comment: a close reading of my comments here ought to lead you to draw the conclusion that we are in furious agreement about the role of government in areas experiencing unmet demand.
BBB
Apologies if I was reading on the run, BBB.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/editorial/reality-and-expectations-in-child-care/2006/04/02/1143916405170.html
If Krudd was serious about an “Education Revolution” he’d be doing something about turning childcare from barren recepticles into which children are placed out of sight and mind during work-hours into a place where they are actually learning during their peak period of neurological growth.
It is a shocking indictment of our society that childcare workers require the same qualifications and recieve the same minimum-wage pay as telemarketers, wait-staff and supermarket shelf-stackers. Is this all our children are worth?
Too right, yeti. And the logic of the market dictates the prioritisation of employers’ needs over quality childcare, good education and the needs of parents and children - as citizens, workers and dependents. A shorter working week with no loss of pay and extensive paid parental leave for the early years of a child’s life are not even considered as serious policy options today. Why?
How can children be properly cared for – at any age – if their parents are constantly exhausted, stressed as a result of either working ever longer hours, or being unemployed, or subjected to insecure, casualised employment and other negative neo-liberal policies? So long as social policy making remains fragmented and disjointed and labour market and public services issues are not also simultaneously addressed, any reforms will be piecemeal at best, wasted at worst. Nor will they provide real choice.
There is a lot of ignorance about economics being displayed on this thread.
Mark, if there is excess demand for child care places, why is it that the existing centres aren’t raising their prices further or new entrants coming into the market or a combination of both? If existing facilities are substandard, why isn’t someone offering higher quality service and charging a higher price if necessary to do so? Maybe people aren’t willing to pay any more for child care, in which case it is the consumers fault if there are substandard conditions and not enough places. Maybe there are restrictions on who can set up and run a child care centre, in which case it is the governmentss fault.
Jinmaro, who exactly is going to pay for the reduction in work hours and increase in paid leave entitlements if wages are to stay the same?
Interesting, Damien.
People versed in the theory of markets may continue to treat childcare centres as a market that could easily be entered, but they might like to pause to consider the way that existing regulations work to protect the market share of those who currently have power within the market. And they have been raising their prices further!
With respect, I’d suggest you talk to some parents who access the services or look at the existing studies into childcare provision rather than damn others for “ignorance” because the real world market doesn’t fit the prescriptions of economic theory.
Mark, I also suggested restrictions on entry into child care markets as a possible explanation in my previous comment.
My comment has nothing to do with differences between real world markets and the predictions of economic theory, although I wonder which predictions people mean when they make this claim. There is plenty of economic theory that relates to market failures and the like. Furthermore, it seems to me to be a perfectly sensible question to ask what it is that causes the apparently substandard outcomes in existing child care markets. I have not studied child care markets and I do not have children, so I do not know much about these outcomes. Does this mean that I should not pose questions on a blog thread about this topic? Does one need to be an expert to do so?
As an side, can I just note that when I use the term “fault” in my eatlier post, I was not making a moral statement. I recognise that some parents may not be able to afford quality child care for their children and I do think this is a serious problem. In the same way that an inability to afford proper food, housing, education and health care is a problem. These issues are distributional ones and I am more than happy to support redistributrional policies to deal with them.
Mark, when I say I wonder what “people” mean when they make a claim about differences in economic theory and the real world, the use of “people” in plural is probably inaccurate, since I think it is only you that has raised the point. I am guessing that you are referring to the first fundamental theorem of welfare economics, which is the formalisation of Adam Smih’s concept of the “invisible hand”. This theorem provides a useful benchmark result, but there are circumstances, even in theoretical models, in which it does not hold. As such, I think that the criticism of economic theory is unfounded.
Damien, of course you’re entitled to raise questions, and you don’t need to be an expert to do so. I, and others on this thread, have outlined some of the huge problems with the childcare market. What I’m questioning is your willingness to make statements about how those markets do or should operate based purely on a theoretical premise.
Mark, I think a little bit of theory is quite useful. Especially when it is used as a framework for posing pertinant questions. Such as, if the child care market is not working, why might that be the case?
In any event, with the possible exception of developing a set of stylised facts that need explaining, theory-free empirical work in the social sciences is, for the most part, nonsense. The identification problem is an example of why you usually need theory in conjuction with statistical techniques when conducting empirical work. The Lucas critique is an example of what can potentially go wrong if you try to exploit an apparent statiscal relationship without paying attention to the processes that generate that relationship.
On top of that, you suggested that the cause of the problems might be regulations that restricted entry into the childcare industry, which is one of the possibilities I had already suggested. Apparently theory can be useful after all!!!
The current Federal arrangement for Long Day Care has always been about working parents. The current quality control system was brought in when commercial operators entered the system. Brough is now changing [Dumbing down] the quality control system and is vehemently sprouting the view that commercial centres are just as good as community based - Not what I have experienced myself in the mid-90’s or recently heard from many, many sources close to the ground - Not that all CB centres are fantastic either.
Long Day Care is useful, but should not be used for child warehousing by parents or for profit by commercial interests.
The battle lines are drawn in the upcoming review of the NSW children’s services regulation: Staff:child ratios for the under threes [1:5 or 1:4?] and the need for university qualified teachers [Or not]. I’ve supressed the thought that the commercials will lobby for self-regulation. But then again, the NSW Labor Government ….
Yes, sure, Damien, but I think my query is whether you weren’t jumping to conclusions based on theory in the face of empirical fact.
Also, I suggested that barriers to entry were one cause of the problems, not the sole cause.
Came across the savings ratio from the ABS which went negative in 2002 and has been negative ever since.
Damien, if we recognise the impact of poor preschool care and child development on teenage and adult life. And if we say there is social responsibility for providing good care for our children, the foundation of our future, then we must look at the ways in which that can be achieved, equitably. That is, if we aim to be a civilised society and a civilised people.
On the question of who will pay for policies such as the ones I mentioned well, I could be flip and say the same people who paid for our part of the invasion of Iraq its ongoing occupation and the WOT here at home.
But that is not the whole answer either, of course, because in fact the public purse desperately needs topping up with progressive, fairer, taxation, investment, fiscal and monetary policies, far greater restrictions on the massive waste of resources, e.g. in the pretty much useless and parasitic advertising industry and an rejigging of democracy itself which allows people to answer such questions as “should public transport be free”, should I be given a real choice between working fulltime when my child is under 4-5, or should the state, supported by the private sector develop supportive policies that enable me to receive a living income and care for my child myself during these crucial, precious, irreplaceable years.
If such questions and issues cannot and are not been widely debated now, in a pre-election period, then why not? And when will they ever be debated?
Ever so well said, jinmaro. I fear for a future of badly adjusted adults whose carer was thrust into the workforce as cheap labour because of new government ‘welfare to work’ provisions.
They are prepared to bully other people into placing their kids in sub standard childcare, to pull coffee for the lady of the manor, who is left to her own choice about parenting arrangements.
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=145&ContentID=29695
Let me get this straight, Jinmaro. You are saying that other people should pay for a family’s childcare in the form of higher (than otherwise necessary) taxes, higher (than otherwise necessary) prices of consumer goods, lower (than otherwise necessary) share prices and lower (than otherwise necessary) dividends? Despite the fact that these other people did not get any say in the familiy’s decision to have a child?
Would you be against “other people” paying for children’s education “in the form of higher (than otherwise necessary) taxes”, Damien?
I would not be against some level of subsidy. Both on the grounds that I think every child should have access to a sound education for equity purposes and because I think that primary and secondary education is much more likely to yield benefits to society as a whole, as opposed to individuals alone, than is child care. Child care, on the other hand, yields predominantly private benefits. As such, its cost should be borne entirely by the parents.
No, quality child care yields social benefits because it means that children’s development is being addressed at the most critical age range by those who are well informed and experienced. Primary and secondary education address children who are already substantially formed as people in terms of temperament and the desire to participate and learn.
Does that mean that mothers or fathers who stay home and mind their children until they are of primary school age are being socially irresponsible if they do not possess qualifications in early childhood education?
What Klaus said. There’s also the benefit of enabling female workforce participation which is clearly crucial to the economy as well as the developmental benefits to the children themselves.
So let me get this straight, Kim. You are saying that a mother who works in paid employment is being productive while a mother who looks after her children is not being productive? That is an absolute load of nonsense. If the parents can not earn enough from their two salaries to pay for child care, then it would be better if they worked less between the two of them and minded their own children.
As for your second point, see my previous comment.
That sounds mightily like a value judgement rather than an economic judgement, Damien - “it would be better”… You haven’t noticed that Australia has labour supply problems and that policy has been concerned to encourage the greatest possible labour market participation in order to overcome capacity constraints?
This is a difficult question. While I wouldn’t be arguing that it is socially irresponsible to take on a role of stay-at-home-parent - especially given the benefits of low child to carer ratios - I do think that for most parents there are real benefits to contact with quality care and with professionals. This does not reflect poorly on parents so much as on the fragmentation of other joint care arrangements, with extended family for example, that still take priority in many places in the world. It is simply the case that these traditional support systems don’t exist for most people in Australia, and quality care can fill this vacuum in knowledge and support.
The economic context that Kim outlines is probably more fundamental to any attempt to address these questions.
Kim, I am not sure how you can have a judgement about what improves an economy (presumably you mean society?) that does not involve a value judgement. But the logic is straightforward. From the parents point of view, the benefit of both parents working is equal to the additional salary they recieve in return for working. The cost is the childcare they now have to purchase. If, in the absence of a subsidy, that cost exceeds the benefit, they would be better off minding their own children. Of course, from societies point of view, there is an added complication. There may be producer surplus attached to the additional job. There may be consumer surplus attached to childcare. There may be producer and consumer surplus attached to minding your own children. There is likely to be a deadweight loss associated with the government raising revenue to fund child care subsidies. It is far from clear that child care subsidies will result in an improvement in social welfare.
As for your comment about capacity constraints and the like, I ask again: Are you saying that a mother who is in the workforce is productive but a mother who minds her own children is not productive?
As an aside, it would be better if, in my previous comment, I had said: There may be consumer and producer surplus associated with the job and paid childcare. There may be producer and consumer surplus associated with minding your own children. There may be a deadweight loss associated with raising revenue to fund a child care subsidy.
Of course I’m not, Damien. But it’s a silly question.
Society would cease to function tomorrow if, by some miracle, it no longer was able to rely on the unpaid labour of women (and to a lesser extent) men within the privatised individual household or family unit.
In relating to the caring and rearing of children, at whatever age, this unpaid labour and the associated enormous and largely privately borne financial outlays, over many years, represents an essential part of the social reproduction of labour which the economy, and society as a whole, relies on in a myriad of ways. Without adequate state subsidy of quality childcare, social inequality is deepened and exacerbated as is the economic and social inequality of women.
If there were no such thing as society, only individuals, then your argument about childcare reaping predominantly private benefits might be true, Damien. But that was always a ridiculous argument and doesn’t bear the least bit of reality testing.
How is it a silly question, Kim? It was prompted by one of your previous comments. In that comment you said:
“There’s also the benefit of enabling female workforce participation which is clearly crucial to the economy as well as the developmental benefits to the children themselves.”
This suggests that you might think that women working is crucial to economy but women minding children is not.
You reiterated this point in a subsequent comment. In that comment said:
“You haven’t noticed that Australia has labour supply problems and that policy has been concerned to encourage the greatest possible labour market participation in order to overcome capacity constraints?”
Now, given that some people seem to think there is a shortage of affordable childcare, it seems to me that women who mind their own children may well be relieving a capacity contraint in the economy. But your comments suggest that you might not agree with this.
No I don’t, Damien. I agree with jinmaro that women’s unpaid labour underpins the economy. But obviously there’s a difference between the sort of productivity that comes from working in the formal economy and unpaid caring.
Huh! Only if you presume that it’s better that women with children don’t work!
Jinmaro, where have I said there is no such thing as society? In fact, I explicitly recognised the existence of society when I mentioned that I believe there are significant external benefits to primary and secondary education. This is probably also rue of pre-school education.
That should be: This is probably also true of pre-school education.
Lets see. There is a shortage of child care facilities even though some mothers choose to stay at home. Suppose that the excess demand for childcare is XDZERO when YZERO mothers stay at home and mind their children. Suppose instead that these YZERO mothers choose to work. They will need to put their children in childcare. Since there is already excess demand, we know that something is preventing the price from rising to clear the market. In other words, there is effectively a price ceiling in place. Thus the ne excess demand will be at least XDZERO plus YZERO. If somne of the YZERO mothers have more than one child it will be even larger. It seems to me that by choosing to stay at home and mind their own children these mothers are relieving a child care capacity constraint.
Note that I have addressed your rather rude comment ( that said: “Huh! Only if you presume that it’s better that women don’t work!”) in a reasonable fashion.
It was more exasperated than rude.
But maybe you could do some reading about the actual childcare situation rather than dazzling us all with equations.
Kim says: “But obviously there’s a difference between the sort of productivity that comes from working in the formal economy and unpaid caring.”
Is there a difference between a mother minding her own children or hiring a nanny to do so? Possibly. But that difference might sometimes involve the mother providing a higher quality care than the nanny. The same situation is probably true of formal child care. Sometimes the mother would provide higher quality care. Sometimes she might not. The only other difference is that if the mother minds the chikldren, it does not appear in GDP, but if she hires someone to do it (either a nanny or a child care centre), it does. This is an essentially meaningless difference. After all, GDP is not a welfare measure.
There is also the issue of women choosing to maintain a level of independent financial security through keeping their workplace skills current rather than dropping off the workforce during their childcare years. If they leave the workforce entirely they become financially dependent upon their partner, which although it is the traditional pattern is often a detrimental choice in the long term if the relationship fails and the woman has to then rejoin the workplace with only outdated skills to offer.
Women working, even if it all goes on paying for childcare, is a rational and prudent choice in maintaining a stake in financial autonomy.
I agree that that may sometimes be the case Tigtog. But that is a private benefit from childcare, not a social benefit. As such, it is an argument for the parents paying for childcare rather than third parties subsidising it.
That should be: But that is a private benefit from childcare, not an external benefit. The social benefit is the sum of the private benefits and the external benefits.
I don’t get that you don’t get that having more people in the workforce provides a public benefit, Damien. I’m genuinely puzzled. I agree with Klaus’ point as well, and there’d be a good case that there are economic benefits to be gained from early childhood development.
I’m with Kim: how is having more people in the workforce not an external benefit of affordable and accessible childcare subsidised by the State?
In the cases of separated/divorced stay-at-home-parents, they are more likely to end up needing to access welfare payments than are separated/divorced working parents, so there is an external benefit there as well.
“they are more likely to end up needing to access welfare payments than are separated/divorced working parents, so there is an external benefit there as well.”
Tigtog, you sound a tad judgemental there. As if “welfare”, should be a last resort. Remember, that some lucky campers have income in the form of dividends from share ownership , for instance. You do not hear too much stuff about these parties gaining from environmental destruction at everybody elses expense, do you?
You say ….”Women working, even if it all goes on paying for childcare, is a rational and prudent choice in maintaining a stake in financial autonomy.” I would have agreed more if you had of added… “if that is that is what they choose”.
Choice is being lost under the new ‘welfare to work provisions’, for single mothers. Some women without flash jobs and good pay may prefer to stay at home and look after their kids rather than have some dubious company do the job for them. Welfare is no disgrace and for some a social wage.
hear, hear, Joe2, we’ve heard this condescending anti-welfarre middle class shite before here from women commenters. It stinks. A fundamental issue here is genuine choice. A woman’s right to choose.
There is already free 9:00-3:00 childcare in Australia - it is called “school” (including pre-school).
Problem is it isn’t available until the kid is already around 4 or 5 years old.
We all accept that every child in Australia has a right to a free primary and seconday school education and a heavily subsidized tertiary education (of which the part that is not subsidized is loaned at zero interest subject to repayment only at a certain level of income).
Even Damien Eldridge is not proposing that State schools be scrapped, even though state schools demand that other people should pay for a family’s education in the form of higher (than otherwise necessary) taxes, higher (than otherwise necessary) prices of consumer goods, lower (than otherwise necessary) share prices and lower (than otherwise necessary) dividends. Despite the fact that these other people did not get any say in the familiy’s decision to have a child.
Is it really so radical to propose that instead of this essential public service becoming available at the age of 4 or 5 that it becomes available a few years earlier? A kid is ready to start learning around the age of one. By the time kids reach the age of five, there is already a huge gap between those whose parents have been willing and able to teach them the basics and those whose parents haven’t - and this gap usually only widens after school begins.
Imagine the difference between a Grade One student whose mum/dad had stayed at home teaching them to read and spell and do math since they were a toddler verses a kid whose parents had dumped them in an understaffed childcare centre without anybody teaching them anything. The difference is effectively several years of primary school learning.
If kindy/pre-school was available from the age of one, when children are at the most critical stage of their neurological development, it would have an enormously positive effect on the outcome of the entirety of their education, indeed their whole lives, and thereby on the health of their society. What’s more, it would go a good way toward meeting the promise of gender equality, by removing the financial and career punishment that women usually face by having a child.
joe2 and jinmaro, I was arguing with Damien strictly in terms of economic external benefits to a society accruing from subsidising child care rather than just private benefits. In purely economic terms, women on welfare are not a social benefit.
That has nothing at all to do with what is beneficial for individuals in terms of balancing family life with whether to be in the workforce or on welfare, a decision which most people make without reference to what is good for the corporatised* national economy, and fair enough too.
* (edited to add)
It is probably true that in the second case they are less likely to become wholly dependent upon welfare but there are many, many women who were only part-time when partnered or who worked in very low paid jobs who access welfare after separation. I think at last count 70% of women who were able to claim some level of parenting payment were also employed. Complete dependence on welfare is the minority case.
This doesn’t detract at all from Kim’s points. The biggest deterrent to separated women becoming employed is access to appropriate childcare. Informal arrangements for care are the norm in my experience; friends, extended family or older children. Women who work in lower paid jobs often cannot afford formal childcare even if they can find a place. They also often work out of what are considered ‘normal’ working hours; in call centres, as domestics etc. If they cannot find informal care for their children, women in these circumstances are faced with a stark choice; work and leave your children at home alone for a marginal benefit, or remain wholly reliant on government benefits and the increasingly punitive requirements that go with them.
I think as a society we need to become more comfortable with the idea that a parent may take a hiatus from work for a few years. Five years out of the work force should not spell the death knell to a career and, given the aging population, perhaps society will become more comfortable with this, out of sheer necessity.
“In purely economic terms, women on welfare are not a social benefit.”
Private economic party without the ’society bits’, tigtog?
Cheers
Engaging someone’s arguments directly is not the same thing as overlooking other factors generally, joe2.
Damien was arguing economics, so I argued economics back. I’m personally all about society, but that wouldn’t matter to what Damien was arguing, would it?
” I think at last count 70% of women who were able to claim some level of parenting payment were also employed. Complete dependence on welfare is the minority case.”
Indeed, su and and ‘welfare’ is never a bad thing, despite some peoples’ call to make them feel embarrassed, even humiliated by the experience. We are talking human rights here.
Su, these women would also be likely to need to front up to centrelink, every fortnight, to justify their existence as well , personally, i imagine?
Fortnightly is the rule now and six job applications per fortnight. I live in an electorate with an unemployment rate approx twice the national average and the lowest median family income in the country; Centrelin would have to be the largest employer here. I would describe the mood of the parents at the meeting I attended about Welfare to Work as desperate.
I loathe the whole concept of Welfare to Work. People either need financial assistance or they don’t, and punitive measures seem rooted in pure malice towards people who are already doing it tough enough.
su thanks and well done.
That stuff never hits the airwaves.
Around 20% unemployment/underemployment, in our area, according to industry insiders.
“Welfare to work” is mostly about cutting people out of the loop and we will all have to pay eventually.
Tigtog and Kim, unless there is a market failure then the provision of childcare should not need to be subsidised. Thus if you want to make a case for such a subsidy you need to identify the market failure that is present. Social benefit is the sum of private benefits. In the absence of market failures, markets typically maximise the sum of private benefits. The standard market failures involve asymmetric information, externalities and public goods and imperfect competition. However the presence of any of these factors is only a necessary and not a sufficient condition for market failure to occur. If you want to argue that childcare subsidies are needed to overcome a market failure that results in women not participating in the workforce enough then you need to identify the market failure that is causing the problems and explain why a childcare subsidy is the best way to deal with it. It is not in any sense obvious that greater participation by mothers or fathers in the workforce is an improvement in social welfare. Once again, what is the market failure that is resulting in lower participation than is socially optimal? Of course, it is possible that there is also government failure here. Perhaps there are regulations that are causing the problems? If so, maybe it would be better to alter or remove these regulations instead? Maybe it is the distrubution of wealth within society, rather than its maximisation, that you are worried about? In that case, the answer is more likely to involve income redistribution rather than childcare. After all, there are both rich and poor people with children. There are also both rich and poor people without children.
yeti, I’ve been very interested in your comments, although others have been on a different track.
I’m too tired to take up any of the points made, so I’ll just do a bit of a rant of my own.
Labor’s policy does seem to go well beyond a rebate on fees, but it is not clear how they regard commercialisation/commodification. I just want to point out that ABC Learning sits in the market as a growth company, but its return on equity is only 11% now. What this means, I think, is that it has squeezed staff and made most of the economies from centralising administration, streamlining brands etc and is expanding mainly by acquiring more centres and building some. It now has 2305 centres in four countries (Aust, NZ, US and UK) and is adding about 200 pa in Aust. In the US it currently operates under 5 brands and is looking at consolidating brands and operations.
It’s a bit of a juggernaut in world terms with a market capitilisation of about $3.4 billion. Profits after tax are forecast to be $200 million in 2008. I don’t think it’s going to go away.
Labor’s policy statement says:
Then there’s a slab about provisions for education and skilling of teachers etc. That’s all very fine, but my wife tells me the tertiary institutions have completely lost the plot in terms of early childhood education. For years now the young teachers emanate knowing little of child development, behaviour management and strategies to use imaginative play. Good lecturers have been moved on or out and the remaining ones have lost touch with reality.
Anyway Labor has a rationale document (pdf) which I’ll now go off and read. 15 hours per week of play for all 4-year olds is good in principle. But it just won’t happen unless they get the personnel resourcing right.
Forcing women to choose between sacrificing their incomes and career opportunities or subjecting their kids (at the most critical periods of their mental development) to under-resourced holding-pens makes a mockery of the concept of “equality of opportunity” that is supposed to exist regardless of gender or class.
The arguments against public childcare can be made equally well against public schooling and any other public service. Again, what would be so radical about extending pre-schooling down from the age of five to the age of one or even under?
Brian, yes it does seem like an improvement on Latham’s early childhood learning program - a free book for every parent to read to their kids! Still, I think “Revolution” is too strong a word for what they are proposing.
On an earlier comment of yours :
Just reinforcing Klaus K’s and Yeti’s points above that you are arguing against subsidisation from the basis of a false premise: Elsewhere in the world it is recognised that investment in early childhood education leads to later economic and social returns. Australia lags a long way behind the OECD in acknowledging this fact. Australia apportions 1.5% of its educational spending on early childhood compared with say Finland which spends close to six percent. Of all the OECD countries only Ireland spends less than we do on early childhood.
Sorry that last was addressed to Damien, nightowls.
No one is forcing women to do anything, Yeti. Parents choose to have children. Parents choose which partner, if any, will mind the children. They may choose to use child care. They may choose to share the child minding duties. Why should other people be forced to bear some of the costs of the choices of parents?
I remain unconvinced that children are better off in child care than at home with their parents during their formative years. If you take that argument to its extreme conclusion, you would take all children off their parents and give them to some supposed “experts” to raise. It is difficult to think of too many more frightening prospects than this.
I see where you are going here yeti. Why not extend pre-schooling to the pre-born.
It’s testimony to the philosophical degeneration of our culture under neo-liberalism when it’s seen as perfectly reasonable to discuss the merits of the provision of publicly funded childcare primarily in terms of individual and/or economic benefits.
It’s a long fall from the more culturally evolved, enlightened Roussean understanding of the link betw