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| Child care on the global agenda
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Canada, UK, USA looking to leverage child care for both economic and social advantage
The Productivity Commission Inquiry into Child Care and Early Learning submitted its final report to the Government on Friday 31 October and now the early childhood sector and parents must wait to hear how the Abbott Government intends to respond to the recommendations made in the report.
Assistant Minister for Education Ms Sussan Ley thanked the thousands of Australians who took the time to comment on the inquiry and described it as a once in a generation opportunity to work together to build a better child care system for Australian families.
This beggars the question what is a better child care system? The Abbott Government has identified flexibility, accessibility and affordability as three key problems with the current system that need to be addressed but what problems do other countries in the world have and how are they seeking to address these issues?
In Canada around 75 per cent of mothers work but there is still a gap between the number of working women and the number of working mums, a gap which is usually attributed to the high cost of care. To address this the Canadian Government is introducing a number of new measures aimed to reduce cost and improve accessibility.
This includes measures such as the Universal Child Care Benefit which starting from July 2015 offers all families regardless of income a payment of $160 per month for each child under six and $60 per month for kids aged six-17.
In the UK the Government is also looking at strategies to improve the affordability problems with the child care system. In the UK, child care costs families an average of £ 6,000 per child per year and Government proposals include a plan to allow parents to claim back up to £1,200 a year for each child. While only for kids five and under to start with the Government says it would expand this to include children under 12 in the future.
Unlike the Canadian system there are no plans to make this universal and both parents need to be working to access the benefit. Recent announcements on the UK child care system have made it possible for child minders and nurseries to look after more children which the Government says will make more places available and decrease costs.
Child care is also high on the agenda in the USA, where President Obama is hosting a summit on early childhood education next month. The Summit will bring together a variety of industry experts and leaders with the aim of improving access to high quality early childhood education.
The President is also expected to use the Summit to announce a series of new investments that will establish a continuum of high quality early learning opportunities for children from birth to age five.
With child care high on the political agenda in so many countries now it is worthwhile considering the five countries with the highest maternal workforce participation rates. OECD figures show that Iceland, Slovenia, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have the highest number of working mums and a negligible gap between working women and working mums. These countries have all prioritised affordability in their child care plans and in Sweden, for example, working parents only spend 3 per cent of their income on child care.
With case studies like these to work with it will be interesting to see what changes are in store for the Australian child care system following the Government's response to the Productivity Commission's recommendations.
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