Disclaimer:I do not plan to solve these questions but I do want to think through the problem through different lights. Please point out where my thinking is flawed or where you thinking I’m missing the point. Grammar corrections are also welcome.
Problem: child care is expensive, low quality, and difficult to find.
Let’s first break down each of the problems into a singular problem and define them.
- Expensive
- A month of child care is equal to the take-home pay of one spouse in a middle-class family. Pew Research shares startling numbers on child care and the effect it’s having on families.
- Low quality
- Caretakers are not trained educators. Some follow curriculums dictated by the state. Care takers are poorly paid. (Not all care providers are of low quality, however, most capable providers will find other means of employment where they are paid a higher wage.)
- Difficult to find
- Child care facilities have lengthy waiting lists frequently spanning 5-6 months out (sometimes longer if you skip a class, for example, if you have a 1 yr old and would like to place her in the 1 yr old class next month then the facility not only has to look at current 1 yr old class volume but also at how many from the infant class is moving up as they have priority. This is not a bad thing just leads to longer waiting lists.)
How is this fixed?
There needs to be more options. More child care options puts the bargaining chips back in the hands of the parents.
They can shop around comparing cost, quality of care, and location.
The current state of the market benefits the child care facility – prices increase, access is limited, and quality drops.
This is fixed by creating more child care facilities.
Creating child care facilities is a money problem. It requires capital to rent a building, hire staff, and legitimize your facility (e.g., licenses, insurance).
Customer acquisition should not be difficult due to the current market so the payback period should be predictable.
Many families are having fewer children because they want to balance having a career and having a family. If it no longer makes financial sense for one spouse to work due to take home pay closely matching child care fees, then we lose valuable workers in the workforce, and cut back on children in child care.
Our reproduction rate is also lower than other countries and this could be a reason since many millennial families are career and budget driven.
How is this fixed at scale?
Service businesses are hard to scale. It’s a people and money problem.
We must add to the workforce to care for more children.
How do we fix the quality?
Quality of care can be fixed by establishing a required training program with a licensing board.
Increasing wages will also help as higher quality individuals that demand higher hourly pay will be interested in working in child care.
It’s a catch-22. Increasing wages will increase the cost per child or increase the number of children per group which will decrease quality again.
Subsidizing of child care is an option that would increase facility funds to pay higher wages to carers improving quality, keep the fee per child the same (or decrease), and allow the facility to expand quicker. Subsidizes would require specific training, licensure for the carers, and periodic check-ins.
Of course, subsidizes are funded by private institutions but most often from the government which are paid for by taxes (and tax hikes).
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash