Quality Versus Affordability of Childcare

Sandra Scarr's main message in her piece, American Childcare Today, is that, concerning the modern debate over whether we should focus on either the quality or the affordability of childcare, research suggests focusing on the latter. Given that numerous studies reveal the relative unimportance of the quality of daycare centers in the long-term, significant weight is given to the position that daycares should have less-stringent regulations so as to be more affordable and available to all segments of the population.

First, Scarr goes through a quick history of childcare, to give a better understanding of what exactly it is, how it came to be, to clarify some myths surrounding the care of young children. For one, she dispels the myth of "exclusive maternal care" for young kids in times past, i.e. the notion that there were times in which moms, and only moms, looked after their own children through development. Scarr reveals that over time and across nations, shared childcare is the norm; that it is extremely typical across contexts for individuals besides the mother- commonly female relatives - to aid in childrearing. What has changed, she says, is how much childcare has been "exported" outside of the home from friends and family to paid services - that is, daycare centers. Basically, since mothers have moved into the workforce following World War II, parental care, relative care, and babysitting have all declined in favor of paid services - especially childcare centers. Since the choice to use paid services has become much more widespread, questions of federal aid and federal regulation are increasingly relevant.

Next, Scarr details two perspectives of childcare - first, the labor perspective, which deals with the goal of allowing maternal participation in the workforce, and second, the developmental perspective, which focuses on the goal of optimal child development. The "labor perspective" of childcare emphasizes the goal of maternal employment among childcare's many purposes. This perspective would tend to favor lesser-regulated, and more available and affordable childcare; while childcare quality and child development are still important, they are more secondary to the purpose of preventing career discontinuities for mothers which tend to hurt their long-term salaries and advancement opportunities. This camp also would favor more prevalent, affordable childcare (as opposed to some more restrictive, but higher quality options), so as to assist welfare reform - the movement of mothers on welfare back into the labor force.

The child development camp places more emphasis on the quality than the quantity of options for childcare. This group prioritizes the goal of having very healthy, safe centers with warm and nurturing staff and stimulating curricula over the goal of more prevalent, but lesser (though adequate) daycare options, which would tend to favor maternal employment. In other words, this perspective prioritizes the developmental needs of the child over the workforce needs of the mother. Variables such as staff education, child-to-staff ratio, the type of curricula, and the dimensions of facility space are more important from this perspective. Scarr notes that while there is much variability in the quality of childcare centers across the country, that studies have not observed any major long-term consequence of placing a child in a lesser-quality center versus a higher quality one. Furthermore, excepting children from lower-income disadvantaged families who typically stand to benefit, in general children's development is generally unaffected by the decision to place them in care or not.

Finally, Scarr discusses the public policy implications of the current research. Essentially, Scarr reiterates the fact that the quality of a childcare center above and beyond basic health and safety standards has been found to be largely irrelevant concerning child development, and so more affordable childcare options should be investigated. She compares the childcare systems of Massachusetts and Texas; although the former state's childcare systems have higher state-imposed standards of quality, they also as a consequence are more restrictively expensive. This means that less mothers overall can use these regulated childcare centers than can in Texas. The main point is that quality and affordability are two opposing variables - quality must come at a price - and so one must be chosen at the expense of the other. Since quality is less important after the basics are covered, Scarr advocates a greater focus on making more childcare options affordable.

In terms of advising a Congressman on the matter, I would inform him or her that state-provided vouchers for families to use privately-run childcare centers would be preferable to using money to support state-funded centers, since much more service (childcare hours) per dollar can be received by opting for the former. I would also advise towards less stringent quality-related regulations (e.g. higher child-to-staff ratios) for childcare centers, so as to keep their cost affordable to a greater number of mothers.