[ Rich countries contribute an average of $14,000 per year for a
toddler’s care, compared with $500 in the U.S. The Democrats’
spending bill tries to shrink the gap.] [[link removed]]

HOW OTHER NATIONS PAY FOR CHILD CARE. THE U.S. IS AN OUTLIER.  
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Claire Cain Miller
October 6, 2021
New York Times
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_ Rich countries contribute an average of $14,000 per year for a
toddler’s care, compared with $500 in the U.S. The Democrats’
spending bill tries to shrink the gap. _

Children, ages 2 and 3, eating lunch at a public child care center in
Denmark., Credit Mathias Svold for The New York Times

 

Typical 2-year-olds in Denmark attend child care
[[link removed]] during
the day, where they are guaranteed a spot, and their parents pay no
more than 25 percent of the cost. That guaranteed spot will remain
until the children are in after-school care at age 10. If their
parents choose to stay home or hire a nanny, the government helps pay
for that, too.

Two-year-olds in the United States are less likely to attend formal
child care. If they do, their parents pay full price — an average
$1,100 a month — and compete to find a spot. If their parents stay
home or find another arrangement, they are also on their own to
finance it, as they will be until kindergarten.

In the developed world, the United States is an outlier in its low
levels of financial support
[[link removed]] for
young children’s care — something Democrats, with their safety net
spending bill, are trying to change. The U.S. spends 0.2 percent
[[link removed]] of
its G.D.P. on child care for children 2 and under — which amounts to
about $200 a year for most families, in the form of a once-a-year tax
credit for parents who pay for care.

The other wealthy countries in the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development spend an average of 0.7 percent
[[link removed]] of
G.D.P. on toddlers, mainly through heavily subsidized child care
[[link removed]].
Denmark, for example, spends $23,140 annually per child on care for
children 2 and under.

“We as a society, with public funding, spend so much less on
children before kindergarten than once they reach kindergarten,”
said Elizabeth Davis, an economist studying child care at the
University of Minnesota. “And yet the science of child development
shows how very important investment in the youngest ages are, and we
get societal benefits from those investments.”

Congress is negotiating the details of the spending bill, and many
elements are likely to be cut to decrease the cost. The current draft
of the child care plan
[[link removed]] would make attendance
at licensed child care centers free for the lowest-earning families,
and it would cost no more than 7 percent of family income for those
earning up to double the state’s median income. It would provide
universal public preschool for children ages 3 and 4. And it
would increase the pa
[[link removed]]y of child
care workers and preschool teachers to be equivalent to elementary
teachers (currently, the median hourly wage
[[link removed]] for
a preschool teacher of 4-year-olds is $14.67, and for a kindergarten
teacher of 5-year-olds $32.80).

Among the 38 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, the United States is second only to Luxembourg
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education spending for elementary school through college. But
Americans have long had mixed feelings
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whether young children should stay home with family or go to child
care. Some Republicans say direct payments to parents
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give them the choice to enroll in child care or stay home. Though many
conservative-leaning states have public preschool, some Republicans
have said they do not want the federal government involved
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Some business groups oppose
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the Biden spending bill would be paid for: increased taxes on
businesses and wealthy Americans.

The pandemic, though, has forced the issue
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“I’ve been writing these reports saying this is a crisis for more
than 30 years — it’s not new,” said Gina Adams, a senior fellow
at the Urban Institute. “But the pandemic reminded people that child
care is a linchpin of our economy. Parents can’t work without it.
It’s gotten to a point where the costs of not investing are much,
much more clear.”

Overall, federal, state and local governments spend about $1,000 a
year on care for low-income children ages 2 and under, and $200 on
other toddlers, according to a paper for the Hamilton Project at
Brookings
[[link removed]],
by Professor Davis and Aaron Sojourner, also an economist at the
University of Minnesota.

Some states and cities offer public preschool, starting at age 3 or 4.
But just seven states (and the District of Columbia) serve more than
half of 4-year-olds, and 14 states have no public preschool or serve
less than 10 percent of children, according to
[[link removed]] the
National Institute for Early Education Research.

 

Kaitlyn Parker, a teacher, with students at the Omaha Tribe Early Head
Start in Macy, Neb. Head Start provides free child care for low-income
families, but relatively few children receive the benefit.
Credit: City Journal Tim Hynds/Sioux City Journal  //  New York
Times
 

For children under 3, only the poorest working families qualify for
subsidies, through Early Head Start
[[link removed]] or
the child care block grant [[link removed]],
but fewer than one in six eligible children receive the help. For most
families, the only direct government support for early care and
education comes from the child and dependent care tax credit. It
benefits higher earners most: The average credit
[[link removed]] is $586, and $124 for the
lowest earners.

The situation is much different in many rich countries. In Europe, new
parents have paid leaves of 14 months, on average, and it’s common
for children to start public school at age 3. (In the preschool years,
the focus in on play — toddlers aren’t sitting at desks doing
worksheets.)

For children ages 1 and 2, parents are expected to pay more for child
care
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and there are similar tensions as in the United States about whether
it’s best for children to be home with their parents, said Hans Bos,
senior vice president studying education policy at the American
Institutes for Research. But governments still pay a significant
portion of the cost of care — including payments for stay-at-home
parents in countries including Finland, South Korea and Denmark.

Nordic countries
[[link removed]] have the
most generous child care systems, including free care for low-income
families. In Denmark
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in addition to heavily subsidized care for children up to age 10,
which is mostly government-run but includes private centers and
home-based care, parents of toddlers receive a quarterly child benefit
of $700.

 

A Danish public child care center. The country guarantees that parents
pay no more than 25 percent of the cost of care from the time their
children are babies.
Credit: Mathias Svold for The New York Times
In Germany, children can attend forms of “kita
[[link removed]]” from early
months through elementary school. In some places, parents pay tuition
based on their income, and in others, including Berlin and Hamburg, it
is free. In France, parents of babies and toddlers receive tax credits
of up to 85 percent of the cost of attending child care centers called
crèches or hiring home-based “childminders,” before public
preschool begins at age 2 or 3.

Parents pay a much larger share of their earnings in certain other
countries, but still receive more government assistance than in the
United States. Japan has subsidized child care, but parents’ share
of tuition is large and it is very hard to find spots
[[link removed]].
England and Ireland offer free preschool, but only for a few hours a
day.

Governments sometimes help pay for child care to further various
policy goals.

One is increasing fertility (though studies have found
[[link removed]] government
policies don’t necessarily make people have more babies over the
long run).

Another goal is increasing women’s labor force participation. In
Europe, research shows
[[link removed]], child care
has had a bigger effect on this measure than policies like paid
parental leave. Studies in the United States have also found that
subsidized child care and preschool increase the chance
[[link removed]] that
mothers keep working, particularly low-income women
[[link removed]].

A third goal is ensuring that children of all backgrounds are equally
prepared. Rich families can more easily afford high-quality care,
which contributes to achievement gaps as early as kindergarten.
Research in the United States shows that children are less likely to
have formal child care [[link removed]] if their
parents are low earners, Hispanic or aren’t college graduates.
Universal programs have been shown to shrink the gap
[[link removed]] in kindergarten readiness. Yet
in the United States, one in three
[[link removed]] American
children start kindergarten without any preschool at all.

_[Claire Cain Miller writes about gender, families and the future of
work for The Upshot. She joined The New York Times in 2008 and was
part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service
for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. @clairecm
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