Speaker 1: Everybody who has kids has a story about their childcare situation,
Speaker 1: either how much they used to pay for childcare or
Speaker 1: how much they're currently paying for childcare, or the struggle
Speaker 1: to get on a wait list for childcare, or when
Speaker 1: I meet people who are pregnant, I'm always asking them
Speaker 1: the question have you thought about childcare yet? From Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News and iHeartRadio, it's the big take. I'm Westcasova today.
Speaker 1: Why has childcare become such a mess? If you're a
Speaker 1: working parent, finding childcare is almost certainly a source of
Speaker 1: stress in your life. Our child runner is actually not
Speaker 1: able to do more than for days a week. We
Speaker 1: are making it work because I am a student, so
Speaker 1: I'm able to look after him. If I was just
Speaker 1: the only one pain her childcare costs, it would be
Speaker 1: eighty percent of my earnings. Both my wife and I work,
Speaker 1: so we had to find someone to look after him
Speaker 1: during the day. We definitely need to earn more money
Speaker 1: in order for her, hopefully to go three days per
Speaker 1: week to the nursery. Six a disgrace. It's like disencourages
Speaker 1: women going back to work. I think it's it's actually appalling.
Speaker 1: We can manage putting him in two days a week.
Speaker 1: Ideally we would like to put him in three days
Speaker 1: a week, but because of the cost of childcare at
Speaker 1: the moment, we physically can't afford it. Those are parents
Speaker 1: in London voicing commonly heard complaints. The childcare dilemma is
Speaker 1: especially acute in the UK. Bloomberg reporter Olivia Canodia Hulu
Speaker 1: has been covering growing discontent from parents demanding the government
Speaker 1: make childcare more affordable. Thousands of parents did this massive process,
Speaker 1: saying we're completely fed up with the system, we're taken
Speaker 1: for granted and we're being the to buy this government.
Speaker 1: Of course, the same is true here in the US,
Speaker 1: and that's where we start today. Simon Workman, you've heard
Speaker 1: him there at the top of the show, is co
Speaker 1: founder of pre Natal to Five Fiscal Strategies. It consults
Speaker 1: with US states and childcare and he wrote a widely
Speaker 1: used study for the Center for American Progress called the
Speaker 1: True Cost of High Quality Childcare across the United States.
Speaker 1: We really do have a bifurcated system here in the US,
Speaker 1: where the childcare system works for some people and it
Speaker 1: doesn't work for a lot of others. It is a
Speaker 1: privately run system to the most part, and so then
Speaker 1: it's not surprising that the people can who can afford
Speaker 1: to pay for it are able to find a chldcare
Speaker 1: system that works for them. You know, if you have
Speaker 1: significant income, you can find childcare because supply exists, because
Speaker 1: supplies responding to the that you actually are in a
Speaker 1: market where you can afford to pay for it. That
Speaker 1: works great for a small section of society, but there
Speaker 1: is a huge part of the population for whom it
Speaker 1: does not work that way. The data out there shows
Speaker 1: that about sixty five percent of children under five have
Speaker 1: the way it's called it's all available parents in the workforce,
Speaker 1: which is to say, you know, if you're a two
Speaker 1: parent household or a single parent household, all available parents
Speaker 1: are in the workforce. So for those children, they need
Speaker 1: to be in care somewhere. It is at a time
Speaker 1: when families they're not their highest earning potential. Generally, people
Speaker 1: are having children sort of you know, at earlier stages
Speaker 1: in their career, so they're not making the most money
Speaker 1: they're ever going to make. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: suddenly you're being told now you need to pay the
Speaker 1: equivalent of a new mortgage every month to pay for
Speaker 1: that child to go to care so that you can work.
Speaker 1: And by the way, the system we have set up
Speaker 1: is that if you decide to step out of the
Speaker 1: workforce instead, there are financial repercussions for that that go
Speaker 1: even beyond that year, the lost earning potential, not adding
Speaker 1: anything into a retirement plan. Taking a few years out
Speaker 1: of the workforce means that when you come back in,
Speaker 1: you're generally at a lower level, and that falls predominantly
Speaker 1: on the mothers, on women, so has a huge impact
Speaker 1: on the female workforce. So when you look at that
Speaker 1: and you start saying, Okay, how do you pay for childcare?
Speaker 1: It becomes clear why the market doesn't really work because
Speaker 1: families become extremely price sensitive because as much as they
Speaker 1: want the highest quality, they are faced with really restricted
Speaker 1: budgets and you know, only able to afford so much
Speaker 1: for childcare, and that of course affects the demand side.
Speaker 1: If people can only afford to pay a little bit
Speaker 1: for childcare, that means low wages for those providing it
Speaker 1: and fewer people willing to do that work right. The
Speaker 1: US Treasury put out a report last year saying that
Speaker 1: this is a market that does not work because you
Speaker 1: have this problem where families need childcare, want childcare, so
Speaker 1: there is a demand, but what they can afford to
Speaker 1: pay for childcare is not what it truly costs for childcare.
Speaker 1: And that was what you know, I wrote about in
Speaker 1: this report last year, was to really get into what
Speaker 1: does it actually cost to provide high quality childcare because
Speaker 1: at the moment, you have this system where a family
Speaker 1: comes and says, you know, this is what I can afford,
Speaker 1: and the provider is faced with either saying no, we
Speaker 1: have higher rates than that, and then they will be empty.
Speaker 1: Apart from in these high income communities, right because most
Speaker 1: people can't afford it, or they lower their rates, and
Speaker 1: if they lower their rates to that market rate, the
Speaker 1: amount of revenue that is available to pay teachers is minimal,
Speaker 1: and that's why you end up with poverty level wages
Speaker 1: very little benefits for teachers. So, I mean, you mentioned
Speaker 1: that in your report. You try to put figures on
Speaker 1: this to try to calculate the true class of childcare,
Speaker 1: and that was one of the things that I found
Speaker 1: most eye opening, is when you really just kind of
Speaker 1: broke down the coast of what it takes to care
Speaker 1: for a child in various settings. Numbers are really bleak.
Speaker 1: They are. I mean, you know, when people ask me
Speaker 1: about why childcare is so expensive, one of my answers
Speaker 1: is always to say it should be even more expensive.
Speaker 1: The issue is not that families need to be paying
Speaker 1: for that. We know that families can't afford to pay
Speaker 1: any more for childcare, but that if you actually break
Speaker 1: down what it costs to provide care for children, when
Speaker 1: you pay teachers, well, the cost is way beyond what
Speaker 1: people can afford. It doesn't take too long to sort
Speaker 1: of think it through and say, you know, if you
Speaker 1: have an infant classroom with eight children in there, even
Speaker 1: if everyone's paying your thirteen fourteen hundred dollars a month,
Speaker 1: once you start breaking it down and pay for the
Speaker 1: building and everything, there is not that much left over
Speaker 1: for salaries. It's a labor intensive industry. When you think
Speaker 1: about what do you pay for a babysitter right now,
Speaker 1: when you go out for an evening on an hourly basis,
Speaker 1: and think about what an early childhood teacher is making,
Speaker 1: there is a huge disparity. Our research has shown that
Speaker 1: about sixty to seventy percent of the expenses of a
Speaker 1: program our personnel. The other sort of thirty percent or
Speaker 1: so goes to maybe you know your rent utilities are
Speaker 1: around ten percent, and then there's materials and food. But
Speaker 1: think about it, if you're paying thirteen hundred dollars a
Speaker 1: month for infantcare, you can have maybe eight children in
Speaker 1: that infant classroom. You're getting about ten ten five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars potential revenue on a monthly basis. Now, if you
Speaker 1: take that seventy percent and say, okay, seventy percent of
Speaker 1: that is going to salaries. Okay, So now you've got
Speaker 1: sixty seven hundred dollars a month that can go to
Speaker 1: cover salaries and benefits and all of the required taxes
Speaker 1: that you have to pay for the teachers in that classroom.
Speaker 1: And then when you break it down for that classroom,
Speaker 1: most people having their kids in childcare for more than
Speaker 1: forty hours a week, so that program has to be
Speaker 1: staffed for fifty hours a week, and you have to
Speaker 1: have two teachers in that classroom because you know, for
Speaker 1: eight infants you need two teachers. That is what is
Speaker 1: necessary for health and safety and you know developmentally appropriate care.
Speaker 1: You quite quickly get down those numbers and there's about
Speaker 1: fourteen dollars an hour left over to cover salary, benefits,
Speaker 1: taxes for each individual teacher, which is below the fifteen
Speaker 1: dollars sort of minimum that some states are trying to
Speaker 1: move to. But even that fourteen dollars, you know, once
Speaker 1: you take off taxes, once you take off benefits as well,
Speaker 1: you start to see how tight it is for programs
Speaker 1: to make ends meet. And that is based on me
Speaker 1: talking about thirteen hundred dollars a month right for infancare.
Speaker 1: A lot of families cannot afford even that thirteen hundred
Speaker 1: dollars a month. And that's right. When you flip the
Speaker 1: lands around and look at thirteen hundred dollars a month
Speaker 1: compared to media and income, that is a sizeable proportion
Speaker 1: of a family's monthly income. Absolutely, And so when you
Speaker 1: talk about the federal government recommends that affordable childcare should
Speaker 1: be around seven percent of your income, but you know,
Speaker 1: we know at the moment that families are paying twenty
Speaker 1: thirty percent of their income on childcare. And so you
Speaker 1: look at these equation and you say, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: teachers are not making enough money and they need to
Speaker 1: make more money. On the other hand, families are already
Speaker 1: paying a significant share of their income, they can't afford
Speaker 1: to pay more. This is the classic issue of the
Speaker 1: broken market that we have. Your report also identifies some solutions.
Speaker 1: What are some of the ways to fix what you
Speaker 1: call this Baroken equation. Ultimately, it's this problem of having
Speaker 1: a what is arguably a public good that childcare is
Speaker 1: that is currently predominantly privately funded. So you have a
Speaker 1: public good that's privately funded means that there is not
Speaker 1: enough public money in the system. We are relying on
Speaker 1: private dollars, mostly families, to pay for this, and so
Speaker 1: we have to change the thinking in this country to
Speaker 1: realize that taking care of young children is not solely
Speaker 1: the responsibility of families. Once a child turns five or six,
Speaker 1: we sort of decide it's our responsibility a society to
Speaker 1: educate them and to care for them, you know, in schools.
Speaker 1: But this idea that that doesn't happen before that age
Speaker 1: has got to start changing. We talk about a few
Speaker 1: different options. One of the policy solutions is to increase
Speaker 1: the amount of money and individual provider gets when they
Speaker 1: serve a child with public funding. Right now, public funding
Speaker 1: levels are set based on that market rate. The market
Speaker 1: rate is not actually the true cost of care. So
Speaker 1: states and the federal government should be setting subsidy rates
Speaker 1: based on what it actually costs to provide care. But
Speaker 1: we also need to be providing that support to more families.
Speaker 1: In most states right now, if you earn less than
Speaker 1: thirty thousand dollars for a family of four, you qualify,
Speaker 1: but if you earn more than thirty thousand dollars, you
Speaker 1: don't qualify for subsidy. We need to increase the subsidy rates,
Speaker 1: increase the amount of provider can get. We also need
Speaker 1: to increase the number of families who are eligible for
Speaker 1: public funding and actually get that money directly to the
Speaker 1: childcare providers and into the pockets of the childcate teachers.
Speaker 1: So I can hear some people saying, oh, sure, that's
Speaker 1: an easy fix, just have the states give more money.
Speaker 1: But a lot of states are facing the budget restrictions
Speaker 1: that we all know about. The academy is not the
Speaker 1: greatest rate now, so where does that money come from
Speaker 1: and what's the return on that investment. We are seeing
Speaker 1: states look at different options, some of them looking at
Speaker 1: using new revenue streams such as tax on marijuana or
Speaker 1: sports betting, you know, to get some more money into
Speaker 1: the system that's often used to target specific initiatives like
Speaker 1: a universal PreK program for instance. The amount of money
Speaker 1: that's really needed for the system, though it is so large,
Speaker 1: it really needs a federal investment because ultimately the states
Speaker 1: who are trying to balance their budgets every year, you know,
Speaker 1: are really struggling with that. The president put in and
Speaker 1: build back better. A huge investment at the order of
Speaker 1: about four hundred billion dollars, you know, was the sort
Speaker 1: of idea of thinking about that amount of money that
Speaker 1: needed to go into the system. We would make the
Speaker 1: case that it is worth it because of this significant
Speaker 1: return on investment at multiple levels. There is a return
Speaker 1: on investment that's related to children. When children have high
Speaker 1: quality early learning experiences, they go into kindergarten more ready
Speaker 1: to learn, and there's a whole series of research that shows,
Speaker 1: you know, then they're more likely to graduate school and
Speaker 1: go on to college and have higher incomes, right, which
Speaker 1: returns a lot to society. You also have the impact
Speaker 1: on the current workforce who don't have to drop out
Speaker 1: of the workforce, don't have to have interruptions to their
Speaker 1: career because they have reliable childcare. And you have the
Speaker 1: direct impact of thousands of childcare teachers right now making
Speaker 1: poverty level wages. If you funded this system at a
Speaker 1: much more robust way, those teachers would see a huge
Speaker 1: raise and they are spending it in the economy today.
Speaker 1: They are buying shoes for their kids, they are buying
Speaker 1: food for their kids, so there is a huge return
Speaker 1: and investment immediately the tax revenues when you boost the
Speaker 1: income of those workers. There's been a lot of research
Speaker 1: over the time to actually quantify all of those numbers,
Speaker 1: and ultimately the data shows that for every dollar you
Speaker 1: invest in early childhood you are getting a return of
Speaker 1: between seven to twelve dollars for every single dollar you invest,
Speaker 1: even with the interest rates going up, that is a
Speaker 1: return most investors would take. This is a no brainer
Speaker 1: in many ways of where you should be investing money.
Speaker 1: There is proven research to show the impact it has.
Speaker 1: The impact is short term and long term, so it
Speaker 1: really is something we should be prioritizing investments in. Simon Workman,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for talking with me today. Thanks why
Speaker 1: it's great to be with you when we come back.
Speaker 1: How the UK is trying to make childcare more affordable.
Speaker 1: The problem Simon workman talked about in the US are
Speaker 1: also true elsewhere in the UK. Angry working parents have
Speaker 1: pressured the government to act, and reporter Olivia Canardia Hulu
Speaker 1: is covering that story. One thing that really illustrates it
Speaker 1: well was that there was this protest and Halloween last
Speaker 1: year were basically thousands of parents, but particularly mums across
Speaker 1: the country did this massive protest saying we're completely fed
Speaker 1: up with the system, We're taken for granted and we're
Speaker 1: being neglected by this government. The foundation of that was
Speaker 1: just because childcare costs are so incredibly expensive that it's
Speaker 1: having an impact on people's lives, on the jobs that
Speaker 1: they take, the hours that they work, and all these things.
Speaker 1: Unlike say the US, which we were talking about just
Speaker 1: a little bit ago, there is a fairly well developed
Speaker 1: system of subsidies for families to get childcare, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't quite go all the way. Yeah, so if we
Speaker 1: look at the system at the moment, well before the
Speaker 1: last budget, parents are three to four year old's gotten
Speaker 1: a certain amount of free childcare hours. But the catch
Speaker 1: with that is that it's working parents, and the definition
Speaker 1: is that both parents to be working at least sixteen
Speaker 1: nails a week for the minimum wage, but that cuts
Speaker 1: out a certain number of people if one of the
Speaker 1: parents can't afford to work because of childcare costs. So
Speaker 1: it kind of gets into this vicious cycles. While in
Speaker 1: theory this is meant to encourage people back to work,
Speaker 1: for some people they won't have that choice, So that's
Speaker 1: why people at the lower end of the income spectrum
Speaker 1: or often cut out. So when it comes like the
Speaker 1: bottom earners of families, only around twenty percent of those
Speaker 1: are eligible for this particular childcare benefit. There is just
Speaker 1: this big question mark about what you do if you
Speaker 1: are in that situation, if you're not eligible for subsidies,
Speaker 1: can't afford to work more, but you're still having to
Speaker 1: somehow find childcare, which is ridiculously expensive. There's been one
Speaker 1: calculation that there are eight different systems and eight different
Speaker 1: subsidies potentially that parents can access, and the money isn't
Speaker 1: nearly enough to cover the cost of those subsidies, which
Speaker 1: means that nurseries then have to raise prices for the
Speaker 1: children that aren't on subsidies. If that makes sense. It's
Speaker 1: fair to say that a lot of people are said
Speaker 1: the system is pre dysfunctional, can you give an idea
Speaker 1: of just how much it cars like work percentage of
Speaker 1: household's income would go to childcare depending on how much
Speaker 1: money you bring in the Organization for Economic Corporation and Development.
Speaker 1: What they found by their analysis is that the UK
Speaker 1: is one of the most expensive countries and when you
Speaker 1: take an average family, as they calculated, it's thirty percent
Speaker 1: of people's incomes. And so what's what that means for
Speaker 1: some people say, it's more than their mortgages, it's more
Speaker 1: than their housing cost. If you're thinking about having a child,
Speaker 1: then it's just a really really massive financial decision in
Speaker 1: the UK. And as you've been covering this, you've been
Speaker 1: writing a lot about how a lot of this falls
Speaker 1: and women who want or need to get into the
Speaker 1: workforce and yet find that childcare makes it impossible for
Speaker 1: them to work. Yeah, So to give you a sense,
Speaker 1: Pregnant and Screwed, which is this really vocal charity which
Speaker 1: do a little work in this, They did a survey
Speaker 1: and they found that around three quarters of mothers who
Speaker 1: use childcare say that it doesn't make economic sense for
Speaker 1: them to work. So there was this one nursing student
Speaker 1: I was speaking to and her partner is also a
Speaker 1: National health service and for complicated reasons, basically, she didn't
Speaker 1: get access to certain subsidies and so childcare was just
Speaker 1: like ridiculously expensive, and her partner was having to work
Speaker 1: these kind of crazy hours on the weekends on nights
Speaker 1: to try and cover those costs. And she was just saying, like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense at all. What's some motivation
Speaker 1: for me to try and improve myself to study when
Speaker 1: I'm just being set back for just wanting to study
Speaker 1: and also have a family. And here's where some other
Speaker 1: parents in the UK had to say about their own
Speaker 1: childcare experience. It's one of amazing things. You've got to
Speaker 1: weigh up when you go back to work. Is it
Speaker 1: worth it. Basically I wasn't working as a result of
Speaker 1: the COVID pandemic when I got pregnant, and it was
Speaker 1: easier to stay out of the workforce and look after
Speaker 1: her than trying to get back into the workforce. A
Speaker 1: fair portion of that decision was about the cost of childcare,
Speaker 1: but also the availability of places and the competitiveness of
Speaker 1: the market. My wife did reduce her hours when we
Speaker 1: had children. She switched from working for a regular full
Speaker 1: time job to working in a school so that she
Speaker 1: would be available during half terms and holidays and we
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to pay for the expensive holiday camps and
Speaker 1: other things that people use during those kinds of times.
Speaker 1: That decision was driven entirely by the cost of those things.
Speaker 1: Looking at the other side of this, even for people
Speaker 1: who can afford childcare, oftentimes you write that they're not
Speaker 1: able to find childcare centers that can take their kids
Speaker 1: if there's a shortage. Yeah, definitely. So that was some
Speaker 1: other numbers that came out this year which were also
Speaker 1: pretty depressing, and that I think it was finding that
Speaker 1: around fifty percent of local areas said that they didn't
Speaker 1: have enough childcare for working parents. Apparently I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that it's normal to enroll your kids for childcare before
Speaker 1: they're born. But for some people, they still aren't able
Speaker 1: to find like the hours that they need all that
Speaker 1: case to them if they're and the hours. So yeah,
Speaker 1: like you're saying, it's pretty bad, and is that to
Speaker 1: do with the pay that childcare providers make that they're
Speaker 1: just unable to find enough people who wanted to work
Speaker 1: long hours under stressful conditions for a relatively low pay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's one of those situations which people describe as
Speaker 1: a perfect storm in that there was COVID, and COVID
Speaker 1: really knocked the sector in that it had to keep running,
Speaker 1: but it was under really really challenging circumstances. Obviously, there's
Speaker 1: staffing issues, as you were saying, it's not very well
Speaker 1: paid at all, and they're really having problems in terms
Speaker 1: of finding enough people and retaining them. And on top
Speaker 1: of that you've had inflation, so they've also got this
Speaker 1: rising kind of running course. So all of that together
Speaker 1: means a lot of businesses have had to close down
Speaker 1: and that's partly fed into the issues with availability. So
Speaker 1: this is an issue where a lot of people care
Speaker 1: about it, but there hasn't been a whole lot of
Speaker 1: political action in the UK until fairly recently, and now
Speaker 1: it seems like the government is really sitting up and
Speaker 1: taking notice. Yeah, it was interesting. In the latest budget
Speaker 1: childcare was kind of the flag shaped reform that it
Speaker 1: was announced today. Childcare reforms will increase the availability of childcare,
Speaker 1: reduced costs, and increase the number of parents able to
Speaker 1: use it. Taken together with earlier conservative reforms, they amount
Speaker 1: to the most significant improvements to childcare provision in a decade.
Speaker 1: So Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunts ahead of the Treasury,
Speaker 1: he made a really big point about how childcare was
Speaker 1: so important and that it was terrible that people weren't
Speaker 1: working because it was so expensive, and he really made
Speaker 1: it one of the biggest things about the budget that
Speaker 1: was announced earlier this month. And so what exactly did
Speaker 1: the government announce. The things which people probably say are
Speaker 1: good are the things such as on universal credit or benefits. Basically,
Speaker 1: the people who get that get a higher amount of
Speaker 1: child benefit, and the way that it's given to them
Speaker 1: is it's basically paid to them upfront instead of them
Speaker 1: having to pay the childcare and then get it, which
Speaker 1: seems might not seem like that bigger deal, but potentially
Speaker 1: people would kind of go into debt doing that because
Speaker 1: they'd have to pay those costs and then ask for
Speaker 1: it back from the government. But the big thing that
Speaker 1: they did was three to four year olds up to
Speaker 1: this point they got a certain amount of so called
Speaker 1: free childcare hours. They basically got quite a big discount
Speaker 1: on their childcare and they've extended that through two children
Speaker 1: for nine months. The problem is that that will cost
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and that program that was already
Speaker 1: in place was already underfunded, which is partly why providers
Speaker 1: have to hype their costs and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: So what providers are now saying is that there's going
Speaker 1: to be this massive amount of demand which they can't
Speaker 1: meet and also can't pay for and can't afford, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of where a lot of the tension has
Speaker 1: come up. So very broadly, the industry said, thank you
Speaker 1: for paying us attention, thank you for kind of giving
Speaker 1: us this platform, but we need more money otherwise this
Speaker 1: very much isn't going to work, and people's hopes are
Speaker 1: going to be up only for more providers closed down.
Speaker 1: The government has announced this new program, how long until
Speaker 1: people actually start to see that money, so it we'll
Speaker 1: be in stages though, I think the first trance, as
Speaker 1: it were, if people will be eligible, I think next year,
Speaker 1: and it won't be fully rolled out until the autumn
Speaker 1: or the fall of twenty twenty five, so it will
Speaker 1: take a long time, and there's a general election in
Speaker 1: the middle of that. So it's very possible that the
Speaker 1: government ultimately won't do it because it will be a
Speaker 1: different government more with Olivia after the break Olivia. So
Speaker 1: obviously this is a big problem across the UK other
Speaker 1: countries for a lot of people, and it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like in the UK they've really found the solution. But
Speaker 1: you do right that there are some countries who are
Speaker 1: doing childcare better. Can you tell us about what they're
Speaker 1: doing and which countries they are. Yes, there's some really
Speaker 1: interesting things that different countries are doing. So when it
Speaker 1: comes to things like rankings of childcare systems, people are
Speaker 1: looking at affordability, So how much of people's incomes does
Speaker 1: it take, quality, other teachers highly qualified, how many stuff
Speaker 1: are their children? That kind of thing, and an accessibility,
Speaker 1: so how difficult is it for you to find childcare?
Speaker 1: And so then audics do really really well. Iceland comes
Speaker 1: top a lot of the time, and that's partly because
Speaker 1: it's pretty cheap relatively speaking, and also because it's high quality,
Speaker 1: so teachers are pretty well qualified. As a very very
Speaker 1: small amount of children per teachers last big as I saw,
Speaker 1: Iceland spends more than two percent of its GDP on childcare,
Speaker 1: so it's obviously a priority for the government and that
Speaker 1: really shows what are other countries are doing things like
Speaker 1: Iceland wages to invest in childcare as a national priority.
Speaker 1: Canada is also really interesting because historically it's had different
Speaker 1: systems across different provinces, but now it's going to roll
Speaker 1: out the same system that was in Quebec. So up
Speaker 1: to this point, someone in Toronto paid much, much, much,
Speaker 1: much more than a parent in Quebec would pay. But
Speaker 1: now Canada basically wants to do this thing where on
Speaker 1: average they want parents to pay ten dollars a day
Speaker 1: I think for childcare, which is obviously a massive thing
Speaker 1: and it's going to be one of the biggest things
Speaker 1: that Justin Trudeau potentially does. And the way that they
Speaker 1: want to do that is potentially try and set up
Speaker 1: these kind of heavily subsidized not for profit centers, which
Speaker 1: has its drawbacks because often there's way more demand for
Speaker 1: these centers than is available. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, it does substantially bring down the cost for
Speaker 1: the majority of people, and it will be one of
Speaker 1: those things where, yeah, they definitely have to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of money on it, but they make the investment
Speaker 1: case that you see that money kind of later in
Speaker 1: the growth of the economy, in that it's a really
Speaker 1: important sector for the growth of GDP, So that's the
Speaker 1: kind of business case that they're making for it. Another
Speaker 1: place you write about there's been really leaning forward and
Speaker 1: this question is Estonia. They have a really high mass
Speaker 1: and literacy proficiency rate in Estonia. One of the things
Speaker 1: about it is that childcare is basically part of the
Speaker 1: education system, whereas for most countries that's not the case.
Speaker 1: So it's another thing where teachers are highly qualified. That's
Speaker 1: very high quality of care and it's really affordable. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about when more that you look at, and there's
Speaker 1: New Zealand. I thought the example of New Zealand was
Speaker 1: really really interesting because one of the big drawbacks is
Speaker 1: that it is expensive. It's almost in line with the UK,
Speaker 1: so it is pretty unaffordable. But they have a national
Speaker 1: curriculum which is rolled out across the country and it
Speaker 1: really kind of places values like community in self empowerment
Speaker 1: and teach them to children quite early and it says
Speaker 1: that children's emotional well being as a result, we're pretty good.
Speaker 1: And also the quality is really really high. And yes,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a national decision that they took,
Speaker 1: so I thought that was really really interesting. It doesn't
Speaker 1: seem that there's a really big secret here where the
Speaker 1: solution is, even though a lot of countries like the UK,
Speaker 1: like the US, have been very slow to adapt it.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the UK would look to some
Speaker 1: of these other countries and try to do what they're doing. Potentially,
Speaker 1: the Labor Party has been quite clear that that's what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and with the Conservative government, I'd be interested
Speaker 1: in what they think about the pushback because on the
Speaker 1: one hand, they really did kind of nail their colors
Speaker 1: to the mast and say we're doing a good job,
Speaker 1: and then they had quite a big amount of pushbacks.
Speaker 1: So I'd be interested in if they feel like they
Speaker 1: need to go further and where they would take their
Speaker 1: inspiration from. But yeah, it's very possible. Earlier in our conversation,
Speaker 1: we were talking about how this childcare situation causes a
Speaker 1: lot of women, especially not to enter the workforce when
Speaker 1: they want to or need to. In these other countries
Speaker 1: where the system just works better. What have we seen
Speaker 1: when it comes to women's participation in the workforce. So
Speaker 1: it's not an entirely clear cut line. The one exception
Speaker 1: is Germany, where childcare is very affordable. It's high quality.
Speaker 1: In some places it's almost free. But female participation in
Speaker 1: the workforce isn't fantastic, and it's a bit complicated. There's
Speaker 1: other kind of government policies which some people kind of
Speaker 1: come into play, but very broadly speaking, the quality of
Speaker 1: the childcare system, on top of things like maternity leave
Speaker 1: and parents will leave policies, so seems to have some
Speaker 1: kind of a link with female participation in the labor market.
Speaker 1: You also mentioned just a little bit ago that we
Speaker 1: start to see economic benefits from childcare early on. That
Speaker 1: shows up not just at the time with their parents,
Speaker 1: but later when those kids grow up and into the
Speaker 1: labor force. Are there numbers where you can actually tell
Speaker 1: what the impact is in countries where they have strong
Speaker 1: childcare systems. When it comes to the economic benefits of
Speaker 1: these kind of policies, what one group has done, PwC,
Speaker 1: the consultancy group. They've calculated to what the economic impacts
Speaker 1: to the gross domestic products of different countries would be
Speaker 1: if women were in the workforce, and for some countries
Speaker 1: it's more than a trillion dollars. There's more complicated factors
Speaker 1: that go into that than just childcare pullars seats, but
Speaker 1: it does at least seem to be for some individuals
Speaker 1: a factors, so I think it is definitely something to
Speaker 1: think about. Olivia Connotia Hulu. Thanks so much for speaking
Speaker 1: with me today, Thanks for having me, Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to us here at The Big Take. It's a daily
Speaker 1: podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more shows from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen, and we'd love to hear from you. Email
Speaker 1: us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 1: The supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicky Bergolina.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Catherine Fink. Federica Roman Yellow is
Speaker 1: our produce. Our associate producer is Zeneb Sidiki hilde garcias
Speaker 1: our engineer. Our original music was composed by Leo Sidrin.
Speaker 1: I'm Wescasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take.