3 Women on What It's Actually Like to Have Universal Childcare
The United States has always stood out among wealthy nations (and, often, less-than-wealthy nations) for its stark lack of policies that support families. We are the only industrialized country that doesn’t offer some kind of paid family leave. We lack any sort of child allowance, a monthly or weekly cash supplement from the government to help parents raise children, a policy that is standard fare in most other nations. For one of the richest countries in the world, child poverty rates have remained persistently high in America. And the lack of affordable child care has become a national crisis, with daycare costing parents more than in-state tuition in half of the country.
Elizabeth Warren, who made universal child care her first big policy proposal after she announced her presidential run, has helped to put the issue at the front and center. It’s a pressing feminist imperative-for many parents, daycare is the biggest cost in the first years of their child’s life, a reality that is compounded by a lack of family leave. In Washington DC, the most expensive place for child care in the country, daycare costs parents $22,631 on average every year according to the Economic Policy Institute. For a typical family living in DC, that amounts to putting 35 percent of their income towards infant care. Child care is only considered “affordable”-costing 10 percent or less of a family’s income-for the median family in two states. And the workers who are actually taking care of our children make dismally low wages.
While Warren’s plan certainly has flaws-such as the fact that it will likely fail to adequately address the lack of quality providers-the idea of universal child care is far from an impossible utopian dream. After all, many other nations have developed policies that help keep child care affordable and accessible. We talked to three women from different countries or provinces-Sweden, Quebec, and France-about what it’s like to live with robust government-run or subsidized child care systems. While no place has a perfect model and there were improvements that could be made across the board (Quebec, for example, has seen worse behavioral and health results for children), the women ELLE spoke to all agreed that without affordable child care, they might have had to make drastically different life and career choices. For many families in America, that choice doesn’t exist at all.
‘Childcare is children’s right.’
Stockholm, Sweden
Beatrice Amsenius
Age: 36
Job: Assistant manager at a local NGO
Children: Two (8-years old, 4-years-old)
In your own words, describe how your child care generally works.
Basically, there’s universal child care that the government provides from when the child is around a year. The reason why there’s a twelve month limit to when they can start is because here there’s also a parental leave system. Between the two parents you get a year-and-a-half off work so before then it’s assumed that one of the parents will be at home with the baby. After that they can start child care.
It’s a children’s right, that’s how it’s phrased in the legal regulations. The local council has the legal responsibility to provide this service. The responsibility is full-time care. Basically the child care centers have to be open from 7am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. It’s heavily government subsidized.
Our oldest child was born in Australia so we had her in child care there until she was maybe three and because there’s no universal system or general right to this kind of service, it’s super expensive and you can only access it for a day or two. The rest of the time it’s assumed that one parent, I guess the mum usually, would work part time or that grandparents can help out and stuff. I think we pay around the same amount a month here that we would for part-time one week in Australia. There’s a maximum fee that you pay as well, so the fee that you pay is relative to your income. Lower-income families get cheaper child care than if you earn more, but then there’s a limit to what you can pay.
How much do you pay per month?
Now we only have one child in child care and the oldest one is in school, but it’s 794 Swedish Krona ($83 USD) per month.
When did you start putting your youngest child in child care and how often are they there?
When she was 14 months and we started her part-time. Then when she was maybe 18 months she started full time. So now, because Marc has been studying the last few years, we probably had her there between 9am to 3pm most days. That will change now because Marc’s starting work in May so she’ll have later hours.
That’s easy to change?
Absolutely.
What’s the quality of the care like? What are they learning?
I think it’s really, really great. We’re really happy with the child care for our daughter, she loves it. To us the most important thing is that they’re happy and safe with the carers and the other kids, which she has been from the start so that’s been great.
Here the child care system is called preschool, it’s part of a national curricula for school so they have standards and it’s all very regulated. They do lots of great things, they spend heaps of times outdoors. Here the weather is not always great but the kids just put on these snow suits they have, it’s really good that they get out every day. They do heaps of things, crafts and painting and sometimes they go and see plays. They have these big prams they use for the babies and stuff to go on walks and go to forest and explore. We’re really happy, but I know also from friends that that’s not always the situation. Some child care centers struggle with a lot of staff turnover, because there’s a shortage of preschool teachers, a lot of them are retiring now.
I think that universal child care is super important when it comes to creating social integration and equal opportunities for children. Sweden is less egalitarian now than it was in the 80s when I grew up, but childcare is in many areas still a place where kids from different backgrounds mix and learn from each other.
Is there often a waiting list? Is it hard to access high-quality centers?
It’s easy to get a spot. The local council is responsible to offer you a spot in a child care center within three months of your application. You’re not guaranteed the specific place that you’ve applied for, you put down three different child care centers. The guarantee is just to offer you a spot. We got our second preference and after maybe six months, we got offered a spot at our first preference. But then our daughter was so happy that we were like, no that’s fine.
Is there a lot of competition between trying to get your kid into better centers?
It kind of depends. I know that in our area that there’s one child care center that’s very popular, that was our first preference that we didn’t get. And then there’s one child care center that’s not at all popular. I know there’s a lot of competition for this particular one that people want, but the one that we got is really good. There’s a lot of child care centers here, basically a day care center every block or every few blocks, so the competition situation doesn’t get to that point because there’s a lot more of them.
Have you or your partner ever felt like you had to sacrifice something big to accommodate for child care?
No. That’s really great here, it just makes life so much easier for families. These past few years Marc has been studying, so that’s made life easier in terms of having kids anyways because he’s been more flexible, which has allowed me then to be able to take on a management role at work. But even now that Marc’s starting work in May, we’re going to be two full time working parents. That would not have been possible had we lived somewhere where we couldn’t access this service. One of us would have had to work part-time.
Access to public childcare and other family benefits was definitely a contributing factor when we decided to move from Australia to Sweden. Having grown up with comprehensive support systems I found it unacceptable when we had our first child in Melbourne that I was expected to be a stay at home mum full or part time until the baby was basically school age, with my husband providing for the family.
What’s the biggest expense you’ve had related to raising your children in the first few years of their life?
Maybe child care, but I’m thinking other costs like nappies, that sort of stuff is probably more expensive here. At least it would be the same cost.
What do you think people overestimate about the child care system in Sweden?
I think the system isn’t always that flexible in terms of accommodating children with different kinds of needs. In Sweden a lot of things are super collective and I like that it’s every child’s right, that resonates with my Swedish soul. But at the same time I know that some kids don’t fit into this one way of doing things. The child care system in Australia is much more flexible in that sense. You can have your child at daycare center but then there’s also home care, nannies, there’s other ways of doing things. It’s not really an option here. In many of the child care centers there are lots of kids, it’s a very intense environment. For kids that are a bit more shy or introverted, it might be hard, they might struggle with that kind of environment.
‘It was a tremendous amount of money to put down, even though I got a subsidy.’
Montreal, Canada
Amber Berson
Age: 34
Job: PhD student, curator and art critic
Children: Two (5-years-old, 2-years-old)
In your own words, describe how your child care generally works.
The way it works here is that you can apply for subsidized day care in what’s called a CPE, which is effectively a large government-run daycare. They have a certain amount of autonomy in how they operate, but the government decides the curriculum through the Ministry of Education. Those are subsidized to $8.25 CAD ($6.15 USD) per day and you have to apply.
When we were first applying for day cares the common sense thing to do is to apply while you’re pregnant because there’s a long waiting list. The system had changed from being first-come, first-serve to being income-based-that meant you pay more if you had a higher income and you'd pay $8.25 if you had a lower income. So a lot of people who were making more money who were in these government-run daycares were switching to private daycares because it didn't change the cost for them and the quality was the same, but it might be more convenient to go to a daycare closer to their house. It became more accessible to get into these government-run daycares.
Now it's going to go back to first-come, first-serve under the new government. I have to say for most people I know, the change to income-based was really positive, most people I know are not making a ton of money and were having easier access.
We’ve also been in a private daycare, which are somewhat subsidized, so you pay the full amount, which is usually between $40 and $60 a day, and then you receive a subsidy from the government based on income, retroactively. And then there’s also home daycares, there’s private and public ones. They have varying degrees of quality.
In your experience, how does the quality vary?
If it’s private it still has some obligations to run through the ministry programming, but they’re not as regulated. So we were in a public daycare that was in a home and we were in a private daycare that was in a home, and in the private daycare there was nobody who verified that she had a phone on the premises in case there was an emergency. There was nobody obligating that they had any outside time.
Do you have a preference between the private and public system?
I much prefer the CPE system and the public system.
How much do you pay per month?
We pay about $450 CAD ($334 USD) per month for both of the kids combined. Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's more, it depends on how many school days are in a month.
When did your kids start in daycare?
My older daughter started in a large private daycare at around eight months and that was great. But when I stopped working full time because of school and I was available more and my partner was available more, we took her out of that daycare, because we also moved. It didn't make sense for us to commute her to this more expensive daycare. We found a home daycare near our house that was more flexible with hours and it was private and that was okay, but it wasn’t excellent. Then we got into a subsidized home daycare and we switched her to that. In that case it was not a good scenario for us, the educator was often unprofessional, so when we got a spot in CPE just after her second birthday, we took it. I love it, it saved my life. My younger daughter has been there since she was 11 months.
What times are they there for?
We bring them around 9am, pick them up between 5pm and 6pm. And they get fed a meal and snacks.
What’s the quality of the care like? What are they learning?
We’re really spoiled because we’re in one of the oldest and longest running daycares in Montreal and many of the care providers have been there for over 20 years. My children love their educators and it’s a play-based daycare where the focus is on learning through play. It’s also a French daycare, so my children are fully bilingual now, but that’s the norm in Quebec, it's actually hard to find an English daycare. They spend the day going outside, going to the park.
Would you say in general, getting your child into a daycare that you prefer is difficult?
I’d say in general the quality is pretty consistently good. What’s hard is getting into a CPE near you. For a long time it was nearly impossible because it was first-come, first-serve and a lot of the daycares are attached to corporations. If you work for a corporation or the government, you are not necessarily low-income. And if you are low-income, you are the person who most needs a quality, accessible daycare because you don't have the choice to go to a private one. I know for myself when I had to put down $800 to $1000 per month up front, it was still a tremendous amount of money to put down, even though I got a subsidy. I know my friends in other provinces or in the U.S. pay a lot more, but we make a lot less here so comparatively it was like putting down an extra rent every month.
Has accessible child care changed your life and/or career choices? Have you or your partner ever felt like you had to sacrifice something big to accommodate for child care?
Child care is relatively affordable for us now. I don’t feel like we’ve had to make any changes in our life to access child care, we’ve been really lucky. But I think what’s really important to remember that it’s no longer going to be income based, so my experience is very different from many people's experiences. I have a partner who also has a flexible schedule so if we need to take time off we can. When we were in a private system sometimes the daycare worker would just say ‘I’m not coming in tomorrow so the daycare is closed.' And when you’re working a full time job and you don’t have that flexibility, that's impossible to work around.
What do you think people overestimate about the child care system in Quebec?
I think just that it could be more universally accessible, that everybody should have a guaranteed spot in a CPE no more than five kilometers from their house, at $8.25 per day. We have this really amazing system here and it has definitely, statistically speaking, increased the amount of women that enter the workforce and stay in the workforce and continue to work after they have children. It's afforded so many opportunities, but it's important to complain a little bit-I feel very Quebecer about this-because if you don’t complain to make it better, it gets worse. It's consistently been sliding towards a more corporate, more capitalist, and less accessible system.
‘It's all managed by town hall...like speed dating, but for nannies.’
Verneuil-sur-Seine, France
Tamara Bootherstone
Age: 44
Job: Lawyer
Children: Two (5-years-old, 3-years-old)
In your own words, describe how government-provided child care works in your country?
There’s several options. You can either go to what we call a crèche, which you apply for at the town hall. Depending on the space they have they will let you know if you have a spot there. There's not enough of them in France so you have to be lucky or they will give priority to people who work and have no other solutions, with probably lower income as well.
But having said that, we had a place for our younger one on Wednesdays. The price you pay for crèche is based on your income as well. It’s quite cheap to be honest.
That's the first option. If you don’t get that then we have a system where there are special nannies who have to do training and are checked by people from the town hall. As a parent you would pay the nanny as an employer, but the state pays for the social security charges so you only pay the net salary, not the gross salary. Plus you get an additional help from the state based on number of children you have and your income as well.
Another option is that you can get a nanny to come to your place either just for your children or you can share with another family to share the costs. That’s a third way of having child care, so in that case what happens is that you pay the whole salary but then at the end of the tax year you get some tax returns. I don't know exactly how much you get, but you get some help.
What did you do with your children?
My older daughter, I was in Paris, now I'm in the suburbs, but in Paris it’s very difficult to have a spot in a crèche so almost everyone goes to nannies. We took our eldest to the nanny’s place, which was the same thing as for my youngest except [my eldest] didn't go to the crèche, she went to the nanny from Monday to Friday.
How much did you pay a month?
For my youngest I used to get €174 per month for her and now that she’s turned three, it’s gone down to €88, but it's still something. If I earned less money I would have had probably €250 to €300 back. So the state pays for the social security charges of your nanny plus they give you a bit so that's really helpful to be honest. My youngest, I used to pay around €800 per month but I would get €174 back from the state, so that’s €626 total ($700 USD). And again it's based on my income so if I earned less it's a bit less expensive.
With the crèche I paid €92 per month but that's only for Wednesday, one day a week. But again, someone else might pay a lot less because it's based on income.
When did your children start?
They started when they were five months old. Because I’m a lawyer and I work for myself I could decide to stay a bit longer with them. If you are an employee, normally the standard maternity leave is three months but usually you also take a month before.
There’s other options, when you’re an employee you can take maternity leave for a bit longer. For example my sister-in-law had a baby in December and she's going to go back to work in September so it means she had maternity leave for two months and then she has an extra six months where she’s paid less, but her job is saved for her when she goes back. In that way she gets a bit of money, she's sure she can have her job back, and she can look after her baby until he’s bit older before going to the crèche.
What’s the quality of the care like? What are they learning?
The crèches are really good. A couple of times a week they have someone specializing in speech therapy or they do a little project. It’s really good, they have lots of different toys, they have little puppet shows.
At the nanny, it entirely depends on the nannies. The town hall organizes once a week or sometimes once a month a special place that all the nannies can go with the children they look after. It’s good because they can speak together if they have problems with the parents or whatever, they can share. And then it's good for the kids as well because it's not just one kid with a nanny, they socialize with other kids, they have games, and they have a psychologist there, so it's really cool. But it depends on the nanny. The one we have for our youngest she always goes because she's amazing, she does lots of stuff, but some others might decide not to go or decide to go just once a month. For example, for our eldest in Paris, the nanny went very rarely. Whereas the one we have for our younger daughter, she cooks with them, paints, we have little presents for Mother’s Day and Christmas.
You mentioned that the crèches have long waiting list. Overall, is it hard to access quality child care?
The crèche might be a bit more difficult but for the nannies it’s usually quite easy. It's all managed by town hall so once or twice a year they do an event where it's like speed dating, but for nannies. The town hall will give you a list of all the nannies in your town and the days when they have events and you can either contact the nannies by phone and do interviews yourself or you can wait for the day when they’re all there and you can meet all of them at the same time.
Has accessible child care changed your life and/or career choices? Have you or your partner ever felt like you had to sacrifice something big to accommodate for child care?
We work less than we used to, but it's also because we have children and we want to see them. The child care really helped us carry on working because otherwise if you don’t have any family or anything, you just have to get organized and so one of us would have to stop working. So the child care really helped us.
What do you think people overestimate about the child care system in France?
I guess the lack of spots in the crèche is a problem. In the suburbs it's a lot easier, even if there are still waiting lists. I've heard stories where it’s really difficult, they tell you have to write to town hall seven times to show that you’re really motivated, that you really have no other options, and really insist if you want a spot in the crèche. There's also something that has been done by some companies, where they organize a crèche for their employees and then pay for part of it so it’s a bit less expensive for the employees, so that's quite good as well. But that's only for big companies.
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