The point is often made that Australia is one of the few developed economies without a universal paid parental leave scheme. (The US is another exception.) While technically true, the Baby Bonus, in combination with Family Tax Benefits, act as a de facto scheme, although these arrangements do not discriminate on the basis of the employment status of the mother prior to the birth of the child or children.
Adding up the dollars attached to these payments and tax concessions, Australia actually does not look particularly stingy in international comparisons, when it comes to the treatment of new mothers.
The argument boils down to whether working mothers should be treated more generously than non-working mothers. In other words, what is the rationale for a mandated paid parental leave scheme? (It is almost exclusively paid to mothers, not fathers.)
There are two main reasons that might be used to support the argument for a mandated paid parental leave scheme.
The first is that it is good for a new-born baby to have the full-time care of the mother (fathers rarely perform this task) for the first months of life. This sets the child up for better life outcomes, which is in turn beneficial to society.
The evidence seems to support this proposition. However, most mothers in Australia, either explicitly or subconsciously, understand this point because relatively few mothers return to any form of paid employment in the first three months of their child’s life – the figure is between 11 and 17 per cent. (The figure for women returning to work in the first six months of their child’s life is between 26 and 31 per cent).
In other words, the vast majority of mothers appreciate the importance of being with their new-born babies and arrange their working lives to achieve this. This is without any mandated paid parental leave scheme.
It should also be noted that there are some mothers – particularly the highly skilled and highly paid – who will return to work shortly after their baby is born, scheme or no scheme. (Indeed, most of these women receive relatively generous privately provided paid maternity leave.)
The second rationale for a government mandated paid parental leave scheme is the contribution it can make to higher labour force participation by women, which in turn will increase national income.
In short term, of course, this is not true. The whole point of the scheme is to prolong the period new mothers spend out of the workforce.
In the longer term, there is some evidence that female labour force participation is (slightly) higher in the presence of a mandated paid parental leave scheme. But there are both income and substitution effects at work, so the effect is ambiguous in theory.
Also women may return to work after the birth of a first child in order to enjoy the benefits of the scheme after the birth of second child. But if two children make up a completed family, then the mother may not necessarily re-enter the workforce after the second child is born with the additional income received reducing the imperative to return to work.
Overall, the evidence on the impact of mandatory paid parental leave on participation is probably not strong enough to warrant the expenditure of large sums of taxpayer money (including a tax on large companies) in addition to the benefits already received by all new mothers.
The post suggests to me that enough may be achieved by simply adjusting the current baby bonus. Here’s a rough formula off the top of my head: cut it in half for any mother who has been out of work for other than medical reasons for (say) 75% of her pregnancy; give that money to the employed mothers, unless they already are lucky enough to be with a generous employer giving them a paid leave, in which case they also get the half rate.
steve from brisbane
20 Apr 10 at 6:48 am
So, basically, maternal leave doesn’t keep women in the workforce?
It’s touted so often as a social good that its value is never questioned. At least, I’ve never heard its value questioned in this way.
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 8:11 am
There’s a strong case to be made that full-time care for a child until school starts is a powerful social good, but if we wanted to achieve that, it would involve income splitting, which no-one seems to countenance these days.
skepticlawyer
20 Apr 10 at 8:25 am
That is, full time care at home by one of the parents.
skepticlawyer
20 Apr 10 at 8:26 am
“in addition to the benefits already received by all new mothers.”
Am I wrong or wasn’t the productivity comission plan an alternative to the baby bonus?
Steve Edney
20 Apr 10 at 8:45 am
There isn’t one private good that isn’t, arguable, also a ‘social’ good, and vice versa. And it’s the ambiguity of the latter that enables the government to insinuate itself in many aspects of our private lives.
dover_beach
20 Apr 10 at 8:47 am
I’m afraid I don’t agree with that at all, SkepticLawyer. There’s a good empirical evidence that quality child care is beneficial. Furthermore it is most beneficial at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. This suggests that it acts as a hygiene factor, ensuring a minimum level of quality care.
.
My own experience backs this up. I had great trepidation about sending a child to child care but it was in fact an overall Good Thing.
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 8:49 am
I’m not discounting good childcare at all, DaddyDave, only pointing out that all the available data we have indicates that a full-time parent is better.
Of course, child-care is highly variable. I’m sure it can be improved (or at least made more consistent), but this is even more difficult than ensuring all full-time care at home is of good quality.
You pays your money and you takes your choice. It’s one of those intractable problems where we need to avoid making the perfect the enemy of the good.
skepticlawyer
20 Apr 10 at 9:11 am
I’m with SL.
People have been taking care of their own children since the dawn of time. I don’t see how outsourced child care can possibly rank up there with full time care by one of the parents. Income splitting offers the most discretion and is the way to go.
jtfsoon
20 Apr 10 at 9:16 am
Whatever happened to grandparents?
jc
20 Apr 10 at 9:20 am
Income splitting is just a tax break for coupledom. Compared to an individual on the same income, the direct beneficiary of income splitting faces a lower tax rate, while also benefitting from unpaid for (and thus untaxed) services provide by his (normally) spouse.
The private benefits of coupledom are sufficient incentive to engage in it, though perhaps Jason sees it as another of SkepticLawyers “social goods”.
The troll formerly known as Tom N.
20 Apr 10 at 9:22 am
‘xactly jc – children are cared for by families, not parents.
asf
20 Apr 10 at 9:46 am
Outsourced care can obviously better in some cases (low socio-econimc groups aka bogan parents), but in general I would think worse.
The main benefit I see in child care (and the reason my kids go a couple days a week) is socialisation of the kids before being thrown into school, and parental sanity.
Steve Edney
20 Apr 10 at 9:51 am
Jc, these days we live longer and in my case at least grandparents are fully committed looking after their parents.
Steve Edney
20 Apr 10 at 9:52 am
Yeah, you don’t want to leave them there too long, or start them too young. but certainly by the time they’re 3 or 4 they should be doing some care, as you say Steve if only for the parents’ sanity. A lot of the negative outcomes are for very long hours at very young ages.
.
But back on the maternity leave thing; Judith is arguing that it doesn’t achieve anything at all. Does anyone here support it?
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 9:55 am
Er, Statman goess to Eatsern suburbs parties where nobody has any children.
C.L.
20 Apr 10 at 10:47 am
“I’m not discounting good childcare at all, DaddyDave, only pointing out that all the available data we have indicates that a full-time parent is better”
I’m quite busy right now due to the time of year, but I might try and dig out some of the real data on that — I was under the possibly incorrect impression that the benefit of a full-time parent over child-care was restricted to quite young infants if you chopped out the extreme cases as DD mentions.
conrad
20 Apr 10 at 11:46 am
jesus h christ, I’m all for rigorous empiricism but do we really need a ‘literature review’ to conclude that ideally there should be a full time parent and that outsourced child care was at best a necessary evil? maybe I’m old fashioned but until this became a national issue in the papers the concept of outsourced child care never even entered my mind.
jtfsoon
20 Apr 10 at 11:55 am
Jason, school is outsourced child care. And there’s nothing magical about the number 5, as in “at 5 years of age your child can now cope fine without you.”
The benefits of parental care are, as Conrad said, mostly at very young ages. I’d ballpark it as under 2.
If you want to talk in evolutionary terms or tradition, staying at home until age 5 is not particularly natural. I doubt that four year old nomad children on the African savannah were hanging to their mothers’ ankles all day. They were probably running around with the other four year olds, maybe in the company of one or two adults who don’t mind supervising the kids.
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 12:05 pm
..so kids who grew up before the 1990s were “not natural”?
I don’t that natural is all that impressive. “Kids, who wants raw horse for dinner?”
Semi Regular Libertarian
20 Apr 10 at 12:10 pm
If you want to talk in evolutionary terms or tradition, staying at home until age 5 is not particularly natural.
It isn’t? Got any evidence that four year-olds were hunting their own bison in days of yore?
C.L.
20 Apr 10 at 12:16 pm
I don’t that natural is all that impressive.
.
no, not most of the time, but for human development it’s relevant. I was responding to Jason, who was making an appeal to intuition. Jason basically said (if I may paraphrase) “I don’t need no stinkin science to tell me what’s intuitively obvious.”
I responded by suggesting that current perceptions about the age that kids should stay home might not be right.
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 12:20 pm
This has always been a touchy subject
tal
20 Apr 10 at 12:31 pm
I always thought the damage of intensive child care from a very young age was on display from the House of Windsor.
steve from brisbane
20 Apr 10 at 12:34 pm
Okay then. Let me lob it back over the net. What’s the evidence that five years old, but not before, is an appropriate age to start sending a child out of the house five days a week to attend school?
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 12:46 pm
of course, the reason I ask is that there is no theoretical or empirical basis for it at all.
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 12:47 pm
Where does home schooling fit into all this?
At some point the kid goes to school because the body of knowledge the kid needs to learn is so complex that it is a better case for outsourcing. Kids aren’t sent to school for ‘childcare’, they’re sent to school because we have trained specialist teachers to impart the increasing body of knowledge they have to assimilate in the modern world, the child care is secondary.
If a kid needs to play with other kids that can still be done with a full time parent arranging play dates and such
jtfsoon
20 Apr 10 at 12:52 pm
and btw there is actually no reason for preschool as such. there is no reason why kids need to start schooling till primary if the parent can teach the children to read and write. and as I said, if they need to get out and about in the social world, this isn’t precluded by a full time parent arranging for some play dates with the neighbourhood children. parents might well take turns on such occasions supervising the children.
jtfsoon
20 Apr 10 at 12:55 pm
I thought age 5 was to do with the fact that it was about the age that the vast majority can reliably not pee their pants and can wipe their own arses.
Steve Edney
20 Apr 10 at 12:56 pm
“if they need to get out and about in the social world, this isn’t precluded by a full time parent arranging for some play dates with the neighbourhood children. parents might well take turns on such occasions supervising the children.”
Sounds very marxist to me SOON. What do you have against the market organizing a similar solution?
Steve Edney
20 Apr 10 at 12:58 pm
well yes, I gotta admit my views are closer to the DLP when it comes to childcare.
jtfsoon
20 Apr 10 at 1:04 pm
“but do we really need a ‘literature review’ to conclude that ideally there should be a full time parent and that outsourced child care was at best a necessary evil?”
Yes, otherwise people would still believe things like heavy balls drop faster than light ones. That’s the value of collecting data.
conrad
20 Apr 10 at 1:05 pm
examining dropping balls is a pisa cake
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
20 Apr 10 at 1:09 pm
conrad
aren’t you attributing a false precision to these studies? measuring dropping balls is quite different to measuring future performance and life outcomes and adjusting for other factors which renders it all a jumble of econometrics.
jtfsoon
20 Apr 10 at 1:13 pm
Look, women should look after their own little children.
We all know this.
C.L.
20 Apr 10 at 1:38 pm
No C.L., subsidies for Eddie Groves and Baby Eienstein now!
Fascist pig.
Semi Regular Libertarian
20 Apr 10 at 1:42 pm
CL you had better duck after that comment
tal
20 Apr 10 at 1:53 pm
Yeah, I agree CL.
That’s definitely true for babies and toddlers. The question for me is, at what age is outsourcing via child care centers and education institutions okay? My opinion is that it’s quite a bit younger than our current school entry age of five, but not as young as one.
And by the way, our schools do function as de facto child minding centers, even though their putative role is educational.
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 1:54 pm
yup you nailed it CL
jtfsoon
20 Apr 10 at 1:54 pm
I thought age 5 was to do with the fact that it was about the age that the vast majority can reliably not pee their pants and can wipe their own arses.
There are anthropological accounts which indicate that as young as 5 years of age children are expected to do their bit for the tribe. Some suggest this relates to the rapid change in some cerebral structures that occur around this age allowing a human to develop a stronger cognitive sense.
John H.
20 Apr 10 at 2:00 pm
Look it seems the libertarian position is, bizarrely, that under five child care is harmful and should be banned but over five sending them out to work down a coal mine is fine.
Steve Edney
20 Apr 10 at 2:09 pm
Didn’t hurt Charles Bronson.
C.L.
20 Apr 10 at 2:12 pm
No, neither did having to wear a dress to school.
Steve Edney
20 Apr 10 at 2:14 pm
“aren’t you attributing a false precision to these studies? measuring dropping balls is quite different to measuring future performance and life outcomes and adjusting for other factors which renders it all a jumble of econometrics.”
It isn’t as simple as dropping balls, but you certainly can happily measure many things that are important with kids accurately enough for it to be worthwhile (language, cognitive processing, etc.). It’s worthwhile noting that if you don’t find any thrilling difference, then it is evidence that childcare is fine, since there are many other factors that really do have serious effects.
conrad
20 Apr 10 at 3:04 pm
“Look it seems the libertarian position is, bizarrely, that under five child care is harmful and should be banned but over five sending them out to work down a coal mine is fine.”
No, it is just pointless and not worth the money. No one ever said the other thing. Child labour is more complex than that anyway. Sometimes it is matter of survival. Actual child exploitation is wrong, no matter what work is undertaken.
Semi Regular Libertarian
20 Apr 10 at 3:09 pm
What is it about child care that turns libertarians into commies? Who are you to decide what people think it is worth?
CL : “Look, women should look after their own little children.
We all know this.”
Jason Soon: “yup you nailed it CL”
Err yes, as I have myself argued at this blog. My point was the contradiction between the attitudes. Perhaps some parents have made an economic decision, the family will be better off with both parents working and the kids in child care.
Steve Edney
20 Apr 10 at 3:37 pm
well put, Steve.
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 3:47 pm
Steve
what anti-libertarian policy conclusions do you think flow from my opinion that people got along fine for ages without outsourced childcare?
Income tax splitting doesn’t stop anyone from purchasing child care. I’m merely expressing the opinion that everyone until the 1990s got along fine without childcare.
jtfsoon
20 Apr 10 at 3:52 pm
“What is it about child care that turns libertarians into commies? Who are you to decide what people think it is worth?”
The fact that people think it means that someone else should pay out.
Raise your own damned kids your own damned way. Don’t ask for a subsidy.
“My point was the contradiction between the attitudes. Perhaps some parents have made an economic decision, the family will be better off with both parents working and the kids in child care.”
Society isn’t. This is just (generally) redistribution writ large.
Semi Regular Libertarian
20 Apr 10 at 3:56 pm
Fair enough, Steve, but the fact remains that child care is subsidised, and this thread involves the extent to which public funds should be employed in its provision. I doubt that SRL, Jason or CL would have any problems or seek to prohibit child care to the extent that it received no public funding.
dover_beach
20 Apr 10 at 3:59 pm
Indeed. These people just want two bites at the cherry.
The fact that childcare isn’t viable would be a good indicator that you should have one parent stay at home.
They may be right that there is capacity constraints in supplying such a demand. How does giving subsidies resolve this exactly? How’d that work for the housing industry?
Semi Regular Libertarian
20 Apr 10 at 4:14 pm
Child care and having children later would seem to me an indication of the problem of paying off homes with high prices.
Way back when a person on a middling income could pay off a house provided sacrifices were made.
Now sacrifices are an anathema and Government must provide comfort to those who want it all.
I do agree the first two years are important and most mothers want to stay at home for that.
It is also important to remember most mothers then want jobs that enable them to take the children to day-care then school and getting them again. The Banks found this out and hence we have a lot of female branch staff.
Butterfield, Bloomfield & Bishop
20 Apr 10 at 4:33 pm
SRL, the issue of subsidies is a different thing. We were talking, mostly (I thought) about whether child care is bad for children. But on subsidies, we have parental subsidies all the way down the line, from maternity leave to child care through to free schooling.
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 4:34 pm
“Now sacrifices are an anathema and Government must provide comfort to those who want it all.”
I think you’re being a bit harsh. Average prices are what (8?) times median income and there is a 31% combined tax rate/flow on price hike on the purchase of property, new/or old.
People are sacrificing to get ahead and keep getting less. Hence the tempatation to ask for a handout so they can have childcare and have a second income to pay off the mortgage.
Semi Regular Libertarian
20 Apr 10 at 4:35 pm
The fact that childcare isn’t viable would be a good indicator that you should have one parent stay at home.
.
Child care is viable if the state doesn’t impose a curriculum and doesn’t insist that the centre employ a twenty-something with a four year “early education” degree, and various other smothering regulations.
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 4:36 pm
A universal PPL system subsidises the families at the expense of the childless.
The upshot of this is that emoployers will resist and the net result could see women or men who want families screened out of initial stages of employment.
It will be a story of insiders vs outsiders, re: screening and expansion of non wage benefits.
Semi Regular Libertarian
20 Apr 10 at 4:42 pm
“Child care is viable if the state doesn’t impose a curriculum and doesn’t insist that the centre employ a twenty-something with a four year “early education” degree, and various other smothering regulations.”
Like I said cryptically, it is a supply side problem.
Semi Regular Libertarian
20 Apr 10 at 4:42 pm
Sure I am stirring the pot a bit, but it seems that they (maybe not SRL) are opposed to the idea above and beyond the subsidy.
Isn’t viable? or are we taxed to the point it isn’t viable? I am a reasonably extreme example, but I’d be around $100 a week better off with no subsidy and income splitting.
Steve Edney
20 Apr 10 at 4:43 pm
“or are we taxed to the point it isn’t viable?”
You tell me. Academic economists pretend we don’t have a tax problem. An educated gent such as yourself has some gravitas.
Semi Regular Libertarian
20 Apr 10 at 4:48 pm
dd is correct. In a modern rich society like 21st century Australia, there is nothing wrong with using childcare. But I would also agree that doing do before the child is 2 – and more likely 3 – really does raise questions about why the parents had the child at all.
There are two main reasons for compulsory five days a week schooling:
1. To socialize the future workers in a highly complex knowledge-intense industrial/post-industrial political economy.
2. To provide child-minding to the adults who have to work in that highly complex economy.
Peter Patton
20 Apr 10 at 4:59 pm
but it seems that they (maybe not SRL) are opposed to the idea above and beyond the subsidy.
They well might but that sentiment really only effects their own private decisions.
dover_beach
20 Apr 10 at 5:00 pm
I’m one of eight. My parents didn’t receive a zac from the gubbermint. Let’s be honest. The purpose of child care is to ensure today’s parents can pay off their flat screen TVs and other assorted crap they don’t really need.
C.L.
20 Apr 10 at 5:04 pm
I’m one of eight.
Cue catholic stereotype jokes.
What the hell are grandparents for if not palming kiddies on to?
Infidel Tiger
20 Apr 10 at 5:06 pm
Oh, an anti consumerist sounding comment from CL instead of CH. How refreshing.
steve from brisbane
20 Apr 10 at 5:07 pm
Steve,
When you look at your credit card bill, do you think “holy crap the Gov. better make some chump pay up so I can palm the kiddies off and work to pay off this debt”
No? You or anyone else wouldn’t dare say it as openly as that would we know?
Semi Regular Libertarian
20 Apr 10 at 5:11 pm
jeebus, I thought big families ended around my father’s generation unless you’re much older than I think CL. *My* father was one of 12, I’m only one of 2.
jtfsoon
20 Apr 10 at 5:12 pm
“But I would also agree that doing do before the child is 2 – and more likely 3 – really does raise questions about why the parents had the child at all.”
Rubbish, you think those people don’t love their kids. I expect that the worst levels, direct and indirect, of child abuse are in families with nobody working.
Pedro
20 Apr 10 at 5:43 pm
It’s not either/or.
Peter Patton
20 Apr 10 at 5:46 pm
No, but you can love your kids and put them in childcare. The question is crap and offensive.
Pedro
20 Apr 10 at 5:48 pm
Indeed. How is society better off though by paying for soemthing that doesn’t have a return at least marginally greater than what is paid out?
No? The why does it need to have mandated funding then?
Semi Regular Libertarian
20 Apr 10 at 5:50 pm
Oh, an anti consumerist sounding comment from CL instead of CH. How refreshing…
Steve, if you’re going to criticize CL, make sure you have a grip of the argument and terms like economic terms are properly used.
Doofus, CL is actually arguing that people shouldn’t be glomming subsidies and demand welfare so they don’t make sacrifices elsewhere.
He’s not making any anti-consumerist argument at all but actually a libertarian one.
Get a grip, keep up and calm down whenever you see his moniker.
jc
20 Apr 10 at 5:54 pm
“Indeed. How is society better off though by paying for soemthing that doesn’t have a return at least marginally greater than what is paid out?
No? The why does it need to have mandated funding then?”
Couldn’t agree more. shut it down I say.
Pedro
20 Apr 10 at 5:55 pm
My wife is one of 9. I’m one of one.
I can’t really understand what happened to Italians in my parents generation as they really looked down on other Italians that had large families or their own parents that did. It was a huge social change for them.
I think the idea of large families would be fun as I see my better 1/2 getting a lot of enjoyment being with her bros and sisters after their parents have gone.
jc
20 Apr 10 at 5:58 pm
We’d have had more if we hadn’t gotten too old. Love it when the kids have their friends over and everyone is running around having a good time. Our street is full of families, it’s great.
Pedro
20 Apr 10 at 6:02 pm
I was rapt when my youngest moved out
tal
20 Apr 10 at 6:03 pm
Ours are joined to our hip, Tal. And the attitude.
jc
20 Apr 10 at 6:05 pm
Set your crazy dog on to them Joe
tal
20 Apr 10 at 6:06 pm
My advocacy of income splitting is for the reasons Jason mentions above: it facilitates choice. I’m a libertarian, ffs — I don’t want to ban childcare. I do, however, think choice is generally a good thing, and if it can be facilitated efficiently (via the tax system) rather than inefficiently (through subsidies), then this represents good public policy.
Some people have kids in childcare from very small and there are no issues with it. Good for them. Other people–the majority–don’t. Not so good for them. I don’t doubt for a moment that most parents love their kids, whatever they do. There is something in the anthropological data that John H mentions above that correlates with age 5 (the school starting age or close to it in many countries now, but also in historic cultures that had widespread or compulsory education).
There is also a wider issue involved: the problem of people pulling policy levers on behalf of others who do not resemble them. Let me explain. Study after study has shown that once you control for children, the gender wage gap disappears entirely. Women who don’t have kids earn as much as men, are promoted at the same pace, finish up at the top of the tree. In some countries (I remember a Finnish study pointing this out), they even come out slightly ahead. Being single and childless is a bloody sight easier than being married with kids, especially for women. Modernity facilitates that choice; yay for me.
That said, voluntarily childless women are not representative of all women, despite the fact that they are statistically far more likely to finish up pulling policy levers. Often the chosen policies obsess about outcomes (‘we must achieve parity between male and female wages’) as opposed to caring about choices (‘people should be enabled to make lifestyle arrangements without expecting direct state subsidy’).
Whatever we come up with (reminders about not making the perfect the enemy of the good need to be repeated here) needs to strike a balance between the modern state’s demand for skilled female labour and the care of small children. There is good evidence that income splitting strikes this balance better than existing arrangements. It also correlates with higher birth rates. Everyone hears about France’s cheap childcare; they don’t hear that the country also has income splitting. France has above replacement-level population growth, crucially not confined to the poor or immigrant communities.
All the relevant data on these issues is available in Patricia Morgan, ‘The War Between the State and the Family’, Institute for Economic Affairs, London (2007).
Sorry for the long comment.
skepticlawyer
20 Apr 10 at 6:29 pm
I’ve got a few more clicks in my 30s left, Jason. There are still quite a few big families around but, yes, they are becoming rare. Your Dad’s parents (in Malaysia, yes?) sound like they were part of that generation that valued children – per se, above all – but also for economic strength. Very old-fashioned idea now but I wonder if old people in 25 years might regret the lack of familial love and care in their twilight years. Besides that human dimension, there is the conjoined economic factor: that is, in our possibly entitlement-bankrupted future economies, bigger families might still have real potency for those lucky enough to have a few extra children.
C.L.
20 Apr 10 at 6:33 pm
Ah, the veil of mystery over CL’s age is finally lifted. I’ve been curious for years about that.
steve from brisbane
20 Apr 10 at 7:54 pm
I’d love a bigger family i.e. more kids. It’s just a luxury I can’t afford. It might be old fashioned but it’s still a great lifestyle. My boss has four kids, he lives in a never-ending party.
Michael Sutcliffe
20 Apr 10 at 8:07 pm
What seems to be forgotten is that childcare has facilitated the increase in the labour participation rate.
I think its a shame that some little ones are left in childcare five days a week but unfortunately for some people they have no choice. The household debt to income ratio of 160% probably has much to do with this.
As for six being the period at which compulsory education kicks in I have heard this is the critical time in language development when most children become wired to read.
Compulsory schooling is about education not childcare.
sdfc
20 Apr 10 at 8:10 pm
Steve, I routinely told anyone who asked how old I was at my two blogs over the past several years.
Why it interests them is beyond me.
Do you have anything to contribute to the discussion?
C.L.
20 Apr 10 at 8:13 pm
C.L. Makes a great point about the lack of children in your twilight years. My grandparents were all able to stay in the homes they loved for far longer than otherwise would have been because they had plenty of kids to help out. There’s going to be a whole generation of bitter and twisted, lonely old farts relying on immigrant labour to wipe their arses in the near future.
Infidel Tiger
20 Apr 10 at 8:21 pm
Yes.
C.L.
20 Apr 10 at 8:27 pm
Yes CL, my fsther was born in Malaysia but then so was I. So the shift towards modern smaller families had begun by my generation over there too.
My father’s childhood was much more materially lacking than mine. He was born when WW2 ended. The family home was on the fringes of the suburbs near the start of a Malay village. And his father passed away when he was a kid. Fortunately he had lots of older brothers and sisters to help look after him and my grandma was a strong willed pragmatic woman who somehow got all her children enrolled in good Catholic schools (though the family wasn’t rich) because she realised that’s where the quality education was at in Malaysia.
Jason Soon
20 Apr 10 at 8:36 pm
Okay, if children are a net social good, what’s wrong with subsidising them? by subsidy I mean
* paid maternity/parental leave
* baby bonus
* parenting payments
* child care rebates
* free schooling
etc.
Don’t more kids benefit the individual as well as society as a whole?
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 8:36 pm
I take back the free schooling. School shouldn’t be free IMO.
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 8:39 pm
DD – children are subsidised, by their parents.
Sinclair Davidson
20 Apr 10 at 8:47 pm
Can someone clarify to me why children are a net social good in the way that law and order, or even subsidised healthcare is?
Children are something you do as a personal decision to benefit your own life (acknowledging the risks). Yep, that’s the truth. BTW, I find the idea that children are a social good because we can tax them later to fund our retirement and healthcare needs somewhat disturbing.
Michael Sutcliffe
20 Apr 10 at 8:52 pm
sure.
Law and order stops society from disintegrating.
Breeding stops society from disintegrating then disappearing.
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 8:57 pm
Unfortunately, it’s either that or Ricardian equivalence on steroids.
skepticlawyer
20 Apr 10 at 9:00 pm
Why does society have a duty to propagate?
Michael Sutcliffe
20 Apr 10 at 9:03 pm
Unfortunately, it’s either that or Ricardian equivalence on steroids.
Putting forward the notion of taxing the unborn invariably leads to societal collapse anyway. I don’t know where the current western deficits are taking us, but neither do any economists. But I sure it’s not good.
Michael Sutcliffe
20 Apr 10 at 9:09 pm
Dad’s the urge to reproduce doesn’t come from the state providing day care.
The largest kid factories in the world are the 3rd world countries where there’s no such as kiddie day care or baby bonus.
I think the reproduction thing needs to be seen in context. My kids are important to me, but they really aren’t to you.
jc
20 Apr 10 at 9:15 pm
Pay for your own damn kids. The vast majority of benefits that kids provide acrue to their parents, siblings and extended family. What benefits they provide to strangers pale in comparison.
If parents are not willing to give up a bit of income for a couple of years in order to have a child then they shouldn’t be having kids. The expenses don’t magically end when they reach school age.
asf
20 Apr 10 at 9:29 pm
I’m sure I agree!
skepticlawyer
20 Apr 10 at 9:35 pm
Michael if you don’t know why children are a social good ask yourself what society would be like without them.
There would be no future for a start.
sdfc
20 Apr 10 at 9:39 pm
It’s apt to note the ABC report on Tony Abbott giving a speech in Perth today:
Most of Mr Abbott’s speech to the 500 Club was met with rousing applause but the mood changed when he brought up the leave scheme.
He acknowledged that not everyone in the audience was delighted when the scheme was announced.
“Some of you in this room, my colleagues had to take a big deep breath before you were prepared to support me on this,” he said.
“But let me say this, a paid parental leave scheme, it’s a fair go for women because it will give them real money for real time to bond with their kids.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/20/2878239.htm
steve from brisbane
20 Apr 10 at 9:40 pm
Sorry, sdfc, but that’s emotional crap. People might want to live for themselves. And sometimes do. That’s their business and all things considered I bet most of those that do are quite happy.
Michael Sutcliffe
20 Apr 10 at 9:41 pm
Let me clarify: I love kids in their own right and I love the idea of leaving my posterity on the world. But that’s just a personal project of mine (acknowledging my kids will grow up and become personal projects of themselves). As JC says above, it’s really got nothing to do with other people. Most of them don’t even know about my kids. And, truth be known, some kids in my neighbourhood wouldn’t be missed by many (potentially their own parents!) if they weren’t there.
Michael Sutcliffe
20 Apr 10 at 9:45 pm
How is that emotional claptrap Michael? Children are the future, that I would have thought is fairly obvious even to someone without children.
sdfc
20 Apr 10 at 9:45 pm
sdfc – in case you didn’t notice, kids existed long before middle class welfare.
The spillover benefits from children are minimal compared to the private benefits.
asf
20 Apr 10 at 9:48 pm
Because reality is cold and hard. The future of ‘the children’ won’t matter to you because you’ll be dead. I love the idea of leaving the next generation, and heaven knows I’m doing my bit, but what’s that got to do with the ‘common good’? Nothing. The idea of the ‘common good’ focuses on those living right now. And the idea of having children to tax so the lives of those living now are better is a little macabre for my taste, in the same way that raising slaves is just a little out of line.
Michael Sutcliffe
20 Apr 10 at 9:49 pm
Michael the children are now. Many of the adults who I work with and interact with through my purchases of goods and services weren’t born until I was well into adulthood. These people matter to me now because they are part of the society I live in.
Society replenishes itself on an ongoing basis. The future is not some ill-defined period that occurs after we’re gone.
sdfc
20 Apr 10 at 10:03 pm
Society is always the cop word, hey SDFC?
jc
20 Apr 10 at 10:04 pm
These people matter to me now because they are part of the society I live in.
But what you’re saying is that there should be a government program to facilitate the people that may matter to you in the future. That it’s the governments job to facilitate the process of societal propagation. That a breeding program is some sort of universal good.
Michael Sutcliffe
20 Apr 10 at 10:11 pm
asf
Thanks for that, I thought there were no children before welfare.
Of course the private benefits outweigh the spill-over benefits. But that is because the benefit of having children is probably the greatest gift you can have.
In case you missed it the childcare rebate has facilitated the rise in labour force participation while still enabling people to have children. I don’t see what the problem is.
sdfc
20 Apr 10 at 10:13 pm
But that is because the benefit of having children is probably the greatest gift you can have.
I’d agree, but this isn’t universal. You’re making assumptions for other people that you have no right to make.
Michael Sutcliffe
20 Apr 10 at 10:19 pm
“What seems to be forgotten is that childcare has facilitated the increase in the labour participation rate.”
Justified by “children are the future”.
Another pearl of wisdom ala Keynesian economics?
Fail.
Does society get a fillip greater than the cost of mandated leave? Yes or no.
Semi Regular Libertarian
20 Apr 10 at 10:33 pm
Whatever the level of payments from the public purse for the care of children, there must be no discrimination against children whose parents choose not to outsource child care.
[I have edited out your email address. Your details should be on your link. Sinc]
Michael Darby of Sydney Australia
20 Apr 10 at 10:39 pm
Does society get a fillip greater than the cost of mandated leave? Yes or no.
.
According to the OP, “no.”
Hey I don’t like the idea of the government playing with the birth rate like they play with the interest rate (I don’t like that either); but how do societies avoid demographic collapse?
Other than incentives to breed?
daddy dave
20 Apr 10 at 10:49 pm
So I get a reply from the professional student.
Just to provide you with some more education SRl. The increase in labour force participation has been entirely due to females. You might want to explain why you believe how increasing the availability of childcare has not facilitated this increased female participation. Otherwise you are just embarrassing yourself again.
If children are the future, you should explain why they are not. Just epeating wehat someone else says and then writing fail just makes you look like a bit of a dick.
Have you worked out the difference between the New Keynesians and Keynes yet?
Yes society does get a filip greater than the cost of mandated leave. That’s why most people want it. You obviously think that workers should not have certain minimum conditions however that no surprise given it comes from a mummy’s boy like you.
sdfc
20 Apr 10 at 11:08 pm
FIRST CASUALTY OF MATERNITY LEAVE
Isobel Redmond on the morning before her hopeful S.A election victory is asked the question on A.M.
“You say the S.A. is the highest taxing State and you are going to lower taxes, how does that fit in with The Federal Liberals plan to bring in a new tax on businesses to fund maternity leave?”
State Labor Governments have always failed to properly manage the financial affairs of every State they have ever run. Federal Labor Governments have always failed as well. A unionist, diplomat, failed lawyer, schoolteacher, political staffer have not the slightest idea of the relationships between business owners and business owners and their staff and customers.
Running Govt is like running a very big business. You have to be accountable and ethical, you have to deliver and keep you product sold. You have to provide motivation for providing for the future (savings) and allow sensible investment; most of all you have to be in the black (In credit) not in the red.(socialist).
Labor Governments and Labor mentality cannot do this. They consume wealth and Non-Socialist Governments allow an environment where wealth can be created.
Growing sections of the media have attacked the Liberal Plan for Maternity Leave and rightly so.
The economic and social disaster of Maternity Leave can be overcome in an abundant and prosperous economy. Business people overcame the 11% Nationalisation Tax also known as the GST. The creative genius of man and woman to overcome hurdles can never be underestimated.
The disaster that is about to unfold in Tasmania and South Australia tomorrow is a two way loss. The major loss of not returning those States to the hands of business minded administrators will be a extra woe for Australians on top of Rudd’s Raiders.
A win will send the wrong message to Federal Liberal that Maternity Leave is acceptable as a new tax.
Should Abbott recant today both States would strongly go Liberal. Every non-socialist in the land would campaign on a personal level to their friends, family, neighbours and staff. The desire to really campaign has to be at fever-fire level for ordinary non-socialist people to talk to their staff, their neighbours, their family and friends to plead for a non-labor vote.
The few Experienced and the many everyday non-socialists have insufficient steam or motivation to attempt to help a non-winner or a semi-socialist except in a perfunctory way. Not one person will vote liberal because there is going to be Maternity Leave. Not one Mt Druitt Plasma TV solo mum voted Howard because of the baby bonus.
John Howard lost because he lost the trust of the non-socialists. The Supporters, Advocates, Volunteers and Enthusiasts (Saves) saw no value in Howard’s socialist ways. It was not Howard that had a created a sound economy. It is the small business owner that did that. All Howard did was keep Labor out of office and free Timor .
Howard did not abolish the GST; after paying off Keating’s debt; Howard gave the GST to socialist Labor States to squander and votebuy.
Tony Abbott has made the biggest mistake of his career. The fact is Australian voters are forgetful and forgiving. If Abbott withdraws this new tax proposal the non-socialists will campaign hard for him and Abbott will beat Rudd and so save Australia .
signed 19th March 2010
James Darby
21 Apr 10 at 1:07 am
“Unfair Dismissal Laws”
Mr Tony Abbott is reported as stating there will be a softening of the Liberal Party’s opposition to the so called “Unfair Dismissal Laws” and that a Liberal Government will only alter Rudd’s law to apply to employers who employ five or less people.
How a Liberal victory ever comes about over socialist Labor is when Liberal Voters are motivated to influence their staff, friends, neighbours and family to take the strong course. The course where people are rewarded for their personal productive effort- not their effort to simply vote Labor for a living at someone else’s expensive.
Tony has rubbed out the zest with three socialist policies each one worst than the previous one. The ETS alternative, the Paid Maternity Leave and now the maintenance of Rudd’s “Unfair Dismissal Laws”
I always wondered why Tony Abbott disliked Pauline Hanson so much, or was it David Oldfield?. Whatever, as with the latest destructive and damaging policy Abbott has assured another Hanson will rise to attempt to save Australia from Rudd.
Firstly I thought it was the Parliamentary Staffers, then I blamed Joe Lefty E.T.S. (“Turnbull is me mate”) Hockey and now I think that the Liberal Party has totally lost its way and they can all be blamed for Abbott’s lapse into weakness.
There is no such thing as “Unfair Dismissal” unless the boss is sacking someone for not putting out. No employer sacks a profitable and productive employee who treats the business as their own and wants to make money for their boss.
We are not talking about equality here. There is no such thing as an employee equal to an employer. An employer is a first class citizen and an employee is a second class citizen.
You want to be a first class citizen? Learn off your boss how to employ and train people, make money and then go and start your own business. You will have to retrain everyone coming out of the socialist school system as none are employable. The first person you have to train is yourself. How to obey and believe the boss to do the work the way the boss wants it done.
In the last leadership crisis we saw Mr Malcolm Turnbull side with Mr Kevin Rudd to foist on an unsuspecting Australia public a super tax that would benefit overseas peoples and not Australians. Now we see Mr Tony Abbott wanting to get a room with Rudd to lock in umemployables to Australia’s long suffering Small Business owners.
Neither of you guys (Rudd and Abbott) have ever employed people at you own expense. You have not got a clue what it is like to sort your way through to-days youth who think the world owes them a living. How they ‘legalise’ (get a job to later claim unfair dismissal) themselves; then disrupt, pilfer, damage and annoy the employer so as to be sacked.
Nothing is more horrifying for an employer than to walk into their own business and not be able to rid themselves of either a mistake or someone that they had foolishly decided to give a hand up too.
Tony Abbott you have betrayed the small business people of Australia with this switch in policy. Which means you have betrayed allAustralia. You will not beat Rudd as you are the same. Small business trains the future small business owners of tomorrow. Big business does not train the small business owners of tomorrow. No one working in Bunnings will end up owning their own hardware store.
Tasmania and South Australia would have been won by the State Liberal Party Organisations has you not put out the fire to win with your Maternity Leave Scheme.
You cannot beat a socialist by being more socialist. What happened to you Tony Rabbitt?
S.A. and Tas. where on tract to return to sound economic administration under Liberal Government when suddenly from the far left corner Tony Abbott astounds his growing, team of SAVED (Supporters, Advocates, Volunteers, Enthusiasts and Donars) with the amazing declaration of a new socialist tax. i.e. Maternity Leave.
That policy came either from Tony Abbott direct of from his advisors and staff, or a combination of both. I would prefer to image that Abbott was manipulated into the doomed policy of taxing big business to pay for a Maternity Leave Scheme.
If it came from Abbott forget about him for all time- he will never save us from Rudd. I suspect that to stem the increasing flow of new Liberal Party members – who would not be easily controlled – the Liberal Party staffers and Liberal Parliamentary Member’s Staffers – collectively devised a plan to turn off the inflow of new Liberal Party SAVED. The Staffers and the advisors chose a socialist program designed to alienate new Liberal Party Members from continuing their participation and to turn off non-socialists from signing up to help. Because the staffers want to maintain control of the pre-selection committees. E.g. Scott U.N. Morrisson.
Maybe Joe Hockey has talked you into it. It is a real Joe Hockey thing. He is such a lefty, someone who calls himself a ‘progressive liberal’ instead of socialist apologist. Maybe Joe figures with three more years of Rudd even he (Hockey) can get up as PM. Trouble is Joe there is not going to be much left of Australia after three more years of Rudd.
Tony Abbott once said “I made a mistake and I am changing my mind”. Say it again Tony, that is if you want to be P.M.
James Darby
21 Apr 10 at 1:27 am
On 19/04/2010, at 11:43 PM, James Darby wrote:
“Unfair Dismissal Laws”
Mr Tony Abbott is reported as stating there will be a softening of the Liberal Party’s opposition to the so called “Unfair Dismissal Laws” and that a Liberal Government will only alter Rudd’s law to apply to employers who employ five or less people.
How a Liberal victory ever comes about over socialist Labor is when Liberal Voters are motivated to influence their staff, friends, neighbours and family to take the strong course. The course where people are rewarded for their personal productive effort- not their effort to simply vote Labor for a living at someone else’s expensive.
Tony as rubbed out the zest with three socialist policies each one worst than the previous one. The ETS alternative, the Paid Maternity Leave and now the maintenance of Rudd’s “Unfair Dismissal Laws”
I always wondered why Tony Abbott disliked Pauline Hanson so much, or was it David Oldfield?. Whatever, as with the latest destructive and damaging policy Abbott has assured another Hanson will rise to attempt to save Australia from Rudd.
Firstly I thought it was the Parliamentary Staffers, then I blamed Joe Lefty E.T.S. (“Turnbull is me mate”) Hockey and now I think that the Liberal Party has totally lost its way and they can all be blamed for Abbott’s lapse into weakness.
There is no such thing as “Unfair Dismissal” unless the boss is sacking someone for not putting out. No employer sacks a profitable and productive employee who treats the business as their own and wants to make money for their boss.
We are not talking about equality here. There is no such thing as an employee equal to an employer. An employer is a first class citizen and an employee is a second class citizen.
You want to be a first class citizen? Learn off your boss how to employ and train people, make money and then go and start your own business. You will have to retrain everyone coming out of the socialist school system as none are employable. The first person you have to train is yourself. How to obey and believe the boss to do the work the way the boss wants it done.
In the last leadership crisis we saw Mr Malcolm Turnbull side with Mr Kevin Rudd to foist on an unsuspecting Australia public a super tax that would benefit overseas peoples and not Australians. Now we see Mr Tony Abbott wanting to get a room with Rudd to lock in umemployables to Australia’s long suffering Small Business owners.
Neither of you guys (Rudd and Abbott) have ever employed people at you own expense. You have not got a clue what it is like to sort your way through to-days youth who think the world owes them a living. How they ‘legalise’ (get a job to later claim unfair dismissal) themselves; then disrupt, pilfer, damage and annoy the employer so as to be sacked.
Nothing is more horrifying for an employer than to walk into their own business and not be able to rid themselves of either a mistake or someone that they had foolishly decided to give a hand up too.
Tony Abbott you have betrayed the small business people of Australia with this switch in policy. Which means you have betrayed allAustralia. You will not beat Rudd as you are the same. Small business trains the future small business owners of tomorrow. Big business does not train the small business owners of tomorrow. No one working in Bunnings will end up owning their own hardware store.
Tasmania and South Australia would have been won by the State Liberal Party Organisations has you not put out the fire to win with your Maternity Leave Scheme.
You cannot beat a socialist by being more socialist. What happened to you Tony Rabbitt?
S.A. and Tas. where on tract to return to sound economic administration under Liberal Government when suddenly from the far left corner Tony Abbott astounds his growing, team of SAVED (Supporters, Advocates, Volunteers, Enthusiasts and Donars) with the amazing declaration of a new socialist tax. i.e. Maternity Leave.
That policy came either from Tony Abbott direct of from his advisors and staff, or a combination of both. I would prefer to image that Abbott was manipulated into the doomed policy of taxing big business to pay for a Maternity Leave Scheme.
If it came from Abbott forget about him for all time- he will never save us from Rudd. I suspect that to stem the increasing flow of new Liberal Party members – who would not be easily controlled – the Liberal Party staffers and Liberal Parliamentary Member’s Staffers – collectively devised a plan to turn off the inflow of new Liberal Party SAVED. The Staffers and the advisors chose a socialist program designed to alienate new Liberal Party Members from continuing their participation and to turn off non-socialists from signing up to help. Because the staffers want to maintain control of the pre-selection committees. E.g. Scott U.N. Morisson.
Maybe Joe Hockey has talked you into it. It is a real Joe Hockey thing. He is such a lefty, someone who calls himself a ‘progressive liberal’ instead of socialist apologist. Maybe Joe figures with three more years of Rudd even he (Hockey) can get up as PM. Trouble is Joe there is not going to be much left of Australia after three more years of Rudd.
Tony Abbott once said “I made a mistake and I am changing my mind”. Say it again Tony, that is if you want to be P.M.
Signed 19th April 2010
James Darby
21 Apr 10 at 1:35 am
“Yes society does get a filip greater than the cost of mandated leave.”
Provide some proof.
Semi Regular Libertarian
21 Apr 10 at 7:50 am
…”professional student”…
That’s cute. You can get a job and do higher study but get slurred as a professional student. On the other hand you can talk up your job and study refuted economics and regard yourself as an “expert” with no consideration of empirical evidence.
“You might want to explain why you believe how increasing the availability of childcare has not facilitated this increased female participation.”
You might want to explain how this justifies MANDATED leave, you moron.
More Keynesian economics. If you can’t explain it, just say it works differently in aggregate when the numbers say otherwise.
Semi Regular Libertarian
21 Apr 10 at 7:57 am
Just to provide you with some more education SRl. The increase in labour force participation has been entirely due to females….If children are the future, you should explain why they are not.
sdfc, so childcare is a ‘social good’ because its increased female participation in the workforce and because the children are our future. There’s something missing in this argument.
Yes society does get a filip greater than the cost of mandated leave. That’s why most people want it.
No, society doesn’t want it so much as significant cohort within that society that wants to enjoy the private benefit that government subsidised child-care provides. Pretending that this collected private benefit is social in virtue of being greater than one is ridiculous.
dover_beach
21 Apr 10 at 8:43 am
In case anyone missed the news, the vast majority of people seem to have evolved the need to reproduce. What is more, those people who have less of that need aren’t going to leave many genes around to perpetuate their lower need.
Second point – yes affluence leads to smaller families but even in the not exactly impoverished olden days people had large, large families. What has changed since then? Perhaps lower housing affordability for one. High taxes and regulations increasing the cost of living? The welfare state?
Third point – we are being made to save for our own retirement nowadays. The argument that I need other peoples’ children to subsidise my old age isn’t very compelling. Bugger off and leave me alone, I’ll pay for my own retirement thank you very much. And we’re all working for longer anyway.
jtfsoon
21 Apr 10 at 8:51 am
“My kids are important to me, but they really aren’t to you.”
and
“Bugger off and leave me alone, I’ll pay for my own retirement thank you very much. And we’re all working for longer anyway.”
Is that really true though? You kids aren’t important to me as individuals but what about as aggregate? Roads, infrastructure etc are all going to be paid for by the then tax payers not to mention the “insurance” that you have in the pension when you lose all your retirement savings by having it in ponzi money rather than say liquified coal.
As a previous (childless) boss of mine used to say whenever one of his employees had a baby – “more taxpayers to pay for stuff in my retirement.”
Steve Edney
21 Apr 10 at 9:08 am
But Steve E, every one of the benefits you alluded to is private, not social. What you are arguing is that other people’s children may privately benefit me and others, by making the payment of infrastructure cheaper or providing me a pension in retirement; I’m yet to see an argument that suggests the social, distinguished from the private, benefit that spring from childcare.
dover_beach
21 Apr 10 at 9:23 am
I got the impression Steve E was talking about children, not childcare (or am I reading you wrong, Steve?). Affluence and the fact that altruism is fairly weak in the human animal means smaller families (Robin Hanson’s theories notwithstanding, we all regress to the mean over time). However, if you want a more generous population growth rate, then the evidence seems compelling that income splitting is as — or more — effective than subsidized childcare (which doesn’t work very well anyway; look at ABC).
skepticlawyer
21 Apr 10 at 9:33 am
What has changed since then?
.
The reason for declining birthrates is really simple: the invention and mass availability of cheap, effective contraceptive technology, especially condoms and the Pill.
It’s a powerful example of human technology and industrialisation affecting the human race in unforeseen ways.
daddy dave
21 Apr 10 at 9:34 am
SL, I don’t think that effects my argument, it just means that you might include other policies as well that are designed to promote procreation.
dover_beach
21 Apr 10 at 9:36 am
Are you talking about children or childcare dover? There seems to be some confusion of terms going on, that’s all. I can’t prove this, but I strongly suspect the French policies (which clearly do work at encouraging procreation) are there in part to make sure the future tax base is broad enough in order to pay for France’s large state. If I dusted off my French and poked around no doubt I’d find a clutch of senior French pollies saying exactly that.
skepticlawyer
21 Apr 10 at 9:41 am
sfdc is also pretending there is a prisoner’s dilemma wrt to the costs and benefits of this. There isn’t.
sfdc is basically advocating those lucky enough to retain employment in NSW be subsidised in non wage benefits by successful entrpreenuers in the WA mining industry.
Now wonder they find seccession appealing.
The other thing entirely missing from sfdc’s “analysis” (which sounds more like Maude Flanders and Helen Lovejoy) is the role of capital and labour market regulation. What would increase the participation rate is simply an availability of more work. Not taxing scarce capital and sending it off to Africa to develop mineral resources.
Semi Regular Libertarian
21 Apr 10 at 9:44 am
I was talking about children rather than child care itself. Are they a public good in themselves that we should look to promote.
It would seem to me that the alternative being suggest here to child care subsidies is income splitting. This seems to me to be a subsidy as well albeit a potentially more efficient delivered one (although maybe more poorly targetted?).
Steve Edney
21 Apr 10 at 9:48 am
SL, I was doing both if a little clumsily.
dover_beach
21 Apr 10 at 9:52 am
So the state needs to subsidise childcare because otherwise the rate of birth might fall and then the welfare state will topple over?
asf
21 Apr 10 at 9:52 am
sorry that should be subsidse children rather than child care specifically
asf
21 Apr 10 at 9:54 am
Edney, on that basis immigrants are an even bigger public good.
“So the state needs to subsidise childdren because otherwise the rate of birth might fall and then the welfare state will topple over?”
That really is an ugly sentiment. Yet it’s the core of the claim that kids are a public good.
Pedro
21 Apr 10 at 1:28 pm
My wife and I have raised 9 children. A child deserves its mum full-time. Studies show full-time mums (like my wife) have much larger families than women in paid employment.
Studies on outsourced childcare, (another form of discrimination against the stay-at-home mums) show it is not good for children, especially the very young ones.
Robert Osmak
21 Apr 10 at 3:43 pm
SRL
That you don’t understand how childcare benefits free up women to participate in the labour force speaks of your inability to look beyond labour as being just another commodity.
Let me simplify it for you. If the cost of childcare is prohibitive some women will have no choice but to drop out of the labour force, lowering the participation rate. Why you think this would be efficient or desirable is anyones guess.
To suggest that West Australians do not want minimum standards is refuted by history. When the Court Liberal government introduced its own workplace relations laws aimed at lowering minimum standards in the late 90s it was promptly thrown out at the next election. The relevant minister lost his seat.
You go further however and want mandated leave abolished altogether. Good luck.
sdfc
21 Apr 10 at 7:23 pm
“Let me simplify it for you. If the cost of childcare is prohibitive some women will have no choice but to drop out of the labour force”
Explain how the benefits accrue in aggregate over the level of aggregated costs.
“To suggest that West Australians do not want minimum standards is refuted by history.”
You miss the point because you are economically illiterate.
Semi Regular Libertarian
21 Apr 10 at 7:31 pm
“…speaks of your inability to look beyond labour as being just another commodity…”
Rubbish. Rejecting a very poor case for mandated maternity leave which lacks any quantification doesn’t tacitly reject human capital etc.
The best way to ensure a higher participation rate is to increase the demand for labour. Mandating non wage benefits to be paid for the most productive sectors of the national economy does not do this.
Semi Regular Libertarian
21 Apr 10 at 7:43 pm
No you miss the point SRL because you continue to view labour as just another commodity. I’ll make it simple for you, people are not widgets.
That the benefits of childcare outweigh the costs is self-evident. Enabling women (mainly) to participate in the labour force not only facilitates population growth but increases the ability of those workers to purchase goods and services, creating yet more employment.
sdfc
21 Apr 10 at 7:44 pm
“No you miss the point SRL because you continue to view labour as just another commodity. I’ll make it simple for you, people are not widgets.”
Not that I’ve ever said that, but nor are widgets.
Do you even know what you’re talking about?
“That the benefits of childcare outweigh the costs is self-evident.”
No. You’ve only listed the benefits. Typical Keynesian “analysis”.
Semi Regular Libertarian
21 Apr 10 at 7:50 pm
I’ll make it simple for you, people are not widgets.
Here we go… Elephant man
” I’m not an animal!”.
SDFC, if you want kids pay for them yourself and stop fleecing my pocket because you wanna send Daphne to a private school and buy the latest sports-car at the same time.
We’re not widgets either, so stop demanding handouts.
JC.
21 Apr 10 at 7:54 pm
It is amazing that sfdc has not only pulled the Helen Lovejoy/Whitney Houston line of argument (“Won’t somebody please think of/I believe the children are/the future”) and called it “economic analysis” (not to mention the cost-benefits analysis without any costs), but that he has wheeled out the “people are not commodities” schtick but at the same time boosted pointless upping of GDP numbers based on consumerism and putting more people through the rat race.
What a steaming and malodorous slop of pigshit.
Semi Regular Libertarian
21 Apr 10 at 8:10 pm
“If the cost of childcare is prohibitive some women will have no choice but to drop out of the labour force…”
Good.
C.L.
21 Apr 10 at 8:15 pm
Yeah I think that’s the bottom line. Mandated paid parental leave is not about subsidising children. (in that respect we’ve been going up a blind alley for most of this discussion).
Rather, it’s goal keeping women in the workforce. It takes breeding as a given and then says “so how can we stop those women from heading back home?”
The policy is an attempt to socially engineer the gender makeup of the workforce by countering the effect of children. Specifically, children tempt women to leave the workforce and this is a way of trying to entice them to keep their foot in the door.
daddy dave
21 Apr 10 at 8:23 pm
in fact the same is true of subsidised child care.
daddy dave
21 Apr 10 at 8:27 pm
Some women don’t want anyone else looking after their kids
tal
21 Apr 10 at 8:30 pm
So then there is a simple question of cost/benefit ratio. Does the net benefit of maternity leave in terms of women’s participation in the workforce outweigh the cost to the taxpayers and community in general?
Michael Sutcliffe
21 Apr 10 at 8:32 pm
It would for some women. Say a neurosurgeon. But I think the market would happily pay the cost of her childcare expenses in her overall salary. But it wouldn’t be for other jobs, I’d say the market would be happy to replace their labour with a new hire, and wouldn’t be too bothered if they took a prolonged time to come back to the workforce. May sound harsh but we’ve all got to pay for this…….
Michael Sutcliffe
21 Apr 10 at 8:36 pm
CL
The 50s must have been one hell of a decade for you to yearn for it so much.
JC
Hate to break it to you but our kids don’t go to private schools. But I agree, while we get very little, I think people in my income bracket shouldn’t get a childcare rebate at all. The tax my wife pays as a result of the two or three hours we claim pretty much nets off with the rebate we receive so I’m not feeling too guilty about it.
I say my wife because I spent 18 months doing the bringing up babies, packing the kids off to school, looking after the house thing while I was at uni and I was pretty shit at it.
SRL
If you’re not capable of holding a discussion without getting hysterical I suggest you give it away.
Now you seem to not only have something against increased labour participation but also against GDP growth. Apparently economic activity is bad.
Michael
Keeping people in the labour force rather than consigning them to remain house-bound bringing up children, not only increases the labour supply but ultimately serves to reduce the skill loss that comes with a large cohort being forced out of the workforce.
sdfc
21 Apr 10 at 10:28 pm
Dude:
Keeping people in the labour force rather than consigning them to remain house-bound bringing up children, not only increases the labour supply but ultimately serves to reduce the skill loss that comes with a large cohort being forced out of the workforce.
At what economic cost to others. Here’s an old fashioned principle you may not like. Pay for your own kids.
One other thing.. Not many of these jobs are high paying and would be deemed marginal unless there were all these subsidies.
It’s like the stimulus package where it cost us around $350,000 per job.
JC.
21 Apr 10 at 10:32 pm
Keeping people in the labour force rather than consigning them to remain house-bound bringing up children, not only increases the labour supply but ultimately serves to reduce the skill loss that comes with a large cohort being forced out of the workforce.
Did you read that on the back of a Rice Bubble box?
C.L.
21 Apr 10 at 10:33 pm
Keeping people in the labour force rather than consigning them to remain house-bound bringing up children, not only increases the labour supply but ultimately serves to reduce the skill loss that comes with a large cohort being forced out of the workforce
Then when the inevitable happens and society has turned to complete shit through child abandonment, we can re-skill them as prison officers.
Infidel Tiger
21 Apr 10 at 10:40 pm
No JC not many of the jobs are high paying but funny enough it is those recipients as they have the higher relative childcare costs. You seem to think low income earners should be penalised for seeking work I don’t.
The jobs may be marginal to you but I doubt they are to the workers involved.
What is the 350K based on? Sounds like you pulled it out of your arse? Does it include the cost saved through lower transfer payments and lower bankruptcies or the gain in GDP?
CL What can I say. Another stunning non-contribution by you.
IT
You are making hte assumption that the majority of parents putting their kids in childcare are negligent. Do you have any basis for this or is it just a manifestation of your own prejudice.
sdfc
21 Apr 10 at 11:43 pm
Keeping people in the labour force rather than consigning them to remain house-bound bringing up children, not only increases the labour supply but ultimately serves to reduce the skill loss that comes with a large cohort being forced out of the workforce.
No one is consigning them to remain house-bound to bring up children. They don’t have to have kids. They can plan and budget it out so they return to work rapidly through putting their kids in childcare. Furthermore, as I’ve pointed out above, the market will provide plenty of incentives and pathways for the mothers with essential skills to return to work quickly, so if mothers want to return to work quickly they should gain an essential skill. The labour market is pretty good at evaluating who will be a net benefit and who will be a net cost, and it will pursue those who offer the net benefit – there’s no reason to believe a government program will do better than this. My sister-in-law is a medical imaging (x-rays etc) technician and has two kids – both her and her employer demonstrate this effect very nicely.
The question is does it survive a cost/benefit ratio? I doubt it would if the government was funding childcare or maternity leave. You would need to cost in esoteric factors like the benefit to the wellbeing of the mother because she knows that she has value in the workplace. When you’re doing that to justify your cost/benefit ratio you’ve got a problem and are probably kidding yourself. Meanwhile, the cost to the community of funding this program is both quantifiable and substantial.
Michael Sutcliffe
21 Apr 10 at 11:43 pm
Penalized? Huh? You have a strange way of analyzing things, SDFC which is why you seem to have a problem understanding the costs involved with the stimulus.
Subsidies don’t work. They never have and no amount of trying to justify them changes the picture. We’ve heard he same old tired arguments before justifying subsidies to the carmakers for instance, how many jobs it saves etc. and all that bullshit but at the end of the day we all know that subsidies don’t work (except of course you).
JC.
21 Apr 10 at 11:50 pm
Women – do as you’re told – get to work!
SDFC says so.
Always presenting the very latest groovy thinking from 1973.
C.L.
22 Apr 10 at 12:06 am
“If you’re not capable of holding a discussion without getting hysterical I suggest you give it away.”
I’m not the one who went to the Helen Lovejoy School of Keynesian Economics and then turns on their social betters.
Where’s the fucking evidence?
“What is the 350K based on? Sounds like you pulled it out of your arse?”
Budget figures and Rudd’s own claims. Go and get an education you bum.
Semi Regular Libertarian
22 Apr 10 at 9:18 am
Enabling women (mainly) to participate in the labour force not only facilitates population growth but increases the ability of those workers to purchase goods and services, creating yet more employment.
Do you have any evidence that substantiates the first claim, that higher workforce participation facilitates population growth, since in Australia and I dare say elsewhere, increased labour participation has in part contributed to a decline in fertility rates and thus population growth which is why we’re talking about things like paid maternity leave, subsidised childcare, and the like. They would be beside the point if your assertion was true.
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&idim=country:AUS&dl=en&hl=en&q=fertility+rates+Australia
dover_beach
22 Apr 10 at 9:46 am
Very interesting that Nature article reports on the possibility of those Lake Mungo skeletons being those of interbred Neanderthals and modern humans. I have often wondered about the Australian situation, given how isolated it was from the rest of the world. Did early man walking out of Africa ever make it to Australia, and if so, given how sparse and unbountiful Australia was, how and when did the Australian neanderthals disappear?
Peter Patton
22 Apr 10 at 9:53 am
Oops, wrong thread.
Peter Patton
22 Apr 10 at 10:05 am