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Aidan's avatar

Always thought that childcare was a bit messed so glad someone has done the econ on it! My view has been that any government spending on childcare ought to be more agnostic towards gender and work, but more for my own personal values: why wouldn't you want to spend time with your kid that you brought into the world? I think the biggest barrier to this would be political rather than economic, as I'm not confident that the electorate has the appetite for directly 'paying' other people to have kids. Why someone else getting paid for it is easier to stomach has always confused me.

The strange gender dynamic you describe is similar to the role of domestic helpers (maids) in Singapore who (as some claim) have played a huge role in enabling its relatively high progress in gender equality, the irony being that most of these workers are women themselves and get treated like shit.

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Antonios Sarhanis's avatar

Households working in the workforce for 80 hours a week rather than 40 also might also have some more perverse outcomes...

It appears the move for more childcare coincides with:

- rising rates of obesity (fewer home-cooked meals)

- more helicopter parenting because there aren’t plenty of adults at home keeping an eye on the streets

- more anxiety due to helicopter parenting and less free play

- less parental involvement in local community and schools

- higher rates of stress and depression

And it certainly does appear that more women in the workforce has also meant that the mother’s mother ends up with the money, not the mother -- what I mean is it appears much of the increase in household income bids up property prices, which is a perverse way of working women handing over their money to their parents in retirement.

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