Many American parents, politicians, and nonprofits are agitating for universal child care. But a policy experiment north of the border suggests that opening daycare doors to everyone may do more harm than good. Six years after the Quebec provincial government began offering universal $5-a-day child care, families were faring worse than before, find University of Toronto economist Michael Baker and his colleagues in a recent evaluation.
The researchers’ findings defy collective wisdom, which says that universal care is good for both children and parents. As Baker points out, however, most studies examine how child care helps at-risk children, such as kids living in single-parent families or poverty. “We know a lot less about how nonparental care affects not-at-risk children,” he notes.
Because the vast majority of children in non-parental care come from not-at-risk, two-parent families, the researchers focused on this population. Their findings were not sanguine: As universal child care spread through the province, parents in Quebec reported that their children had more anxiety, aggressiveness, and infections, as well as worse motor and social development. And as some 15 percent more women entered the workforce, parents reported more hostile and ineffective parenting, maternal depression, and dissatisfaction with their spousal relationships.
For the study, the authors followed a nationally representative sample of Canadian children from 1996 to 2003. The longitudinal survey allowed researchers to track not only how the Quebecois children changed over time, but also how they compared to children in other provinces.
Although the study’s findings may unnerve many working parents, “it’s a high-quality study,” says Susanna Loeb, an associate professor at Stanford University School of Education. “The researchers took advantage of a natural experiment—a sudden change that affected kids who might not ordinarily have gone into child care.”
That sudden change was the Quebec Family Policy, which in 1997 began opening centres de la petite enfance (centers for young children, or CPEs). The program also certified home-based providers. By 2000, the program offered full-time care for children 5 years old and younger, as well as after-school care for children up to 12 years old—all for $5 per day.
The introduction of cheap, regulated daycare accompanied a 30 percent increase in child care use. Despite this uptick in demand, however, the authors found no change in the educational credentials of providers. A fall in the quality of care is therefore not a likely explanation for children’s deteriorating outcomes, they write.
Instead, Baker suspects that the move from parental care to non-parental care didn’t suit many of the kids. “Different children thrive in different environments,” he says. “But in a universal system, there is one standard to choose from, aimed at some median voter.” This one size did not seem to fit many not-at-risk children. The study was not large enough, however, for researchers to explore which children flourished and which ones faltered in the new system.
Until those data are available, Baker suggests that policy makers proceed with caution. “They must recognize that a lot of the evidence in favor of universal child care is for children at risk,” he says. “We need better answers for children who are not at risk, because they are most of the people who will use the system.”
Read more stories by Alana Conner.