(MENAFN- GlobeNewsWire - Nasdaq) Should we make affordable, accessible, quality child care services available to all families who want to use them? Or should we give families money instead? The Prosperity Project addresses these questions in a report released today
TORONTO, Sept. 05, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As parents return to their fall routines and children head back to school, finding affordable, quality child care is a struggle that is top of mind for Canadian families. Since child care is sure to be a central issue in upcoming elections, The Prosperity Project (TPP) has released an in-depth report on what is of most assistance to Canadian families when it comes to child care – bringing economics and polling data into the debate.
The report demonstrates that families strongly support the current systems in place but demand proper funding and focused attention to ensure its expansion and ability to meet growing needs. It also explains how any suggested alternatives to the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program would be less effective for families and more costly to taxpayers.
“With today's cost of living, parents need child care to find employment allowing them to keep their heads above water. And considering that any alternative to CWELCC would be extremely costly for taxpayers, we must continue working across party lines to address the problems rather than walk away from the program,” said Julie Savard-Shaw, Executive Director of The Prosperity Project.“Improving the current program is just common sense.”
Along with the general success of CWELCC, the report acknowledges that many obstacles must be addressed. With the overwhelming demand for this program, which has the potential to benefit millions of families, opponents have rightly pointed to shortages in care as families struggle with lengthy waitlists or turn to more expensive options to meet an immediate need.
The answer is not to move away from a system that has widespread support among Canadians in all regions of the country, but to deal with those needs now and improve the program. What we need now is a transformation of governments' child care priorities. In the beginning, the priority was affordability. Now, the priority for all governments should be expanding child care capacity.
Child care Report Highlights :
Currently, eight out of thirteen provinces and territories provide safe and healthy licensed child care services at an average of $10 a day or less. The other five jurisdictions have cut parent fees by at least 50%. In Canada, outside Quebec, 58% of families currently not using any child care would like to use some type of non-parental child care. Sixty-two per cent of these would like to use centre-based care (i.e., licensed childcare) as a means to join or rejoin the workforce. If a family allowance style program (money directly to parents) to fully replace the CWELCC program were introduced, it would need to contribute at minimum $12,800 for each preschool child in each family. Otherwise, most families would be worse off.
Such a family allowance program would cost the federal government over $28.5 billion annually, while the $10-a-day child care program will cost just over $9 billion per year from 2025-2026.
Employment rates of mothers are 13 percentage points higher in Quebec than in the rest of Canada. Quebec has a well-established child care system.
In Canada,“[m]others' earnings decrease by 49 percent at the year of birth, with a penalty still at 34.3% ten years after birth.” Child care reduces the impact of children on earnings (10 years after the first childbirth) by roughly 8%.
Only 100,000 of the 250,000 additional spaces of CWELCC have been created.
Canada, along with the provinces and territories, needs to shift gears and prioritize the rapid expansion of good quality child care using all means at their disposal, as well as employing creative solutions.
Read the full report to understand the detailed findings and recommendations here .
About The Prosperity Project
The Prosperity Project has a mission to identify and eliminate the barriers and biases that impede women's success; limiting their, and Canada's, opportunities for increased prosperity. The Prosperity Project envisions a future where empowered women not only overcome obstacles to leadership but also actively contribute to the innovation and sustainable growth of diverse industries across the nation.
Visit The Prosperity Project:
Contact:
Kayla Folo
Marketing and Communications Manager, The Prosperity Project
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519-993-1056
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