Child-care affordability varies widely across Canada

Parents across Canada are paying a wide range of fees for child care, from a low of $152 a month in Quebec to a high of $1,676 for infant care in Toronto.

But the affordability of daycare in Canadian cities also varies by the average incomes of women in the workforce.

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A study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has developed an affordability index for daycare that found Brampton, Ont., a city west of Toronto, is the least affordable and Gatineau, Que., as the most.

The index compares the median costs of fully licensed child-care centres and licensed family child-care to the average income of working mothers.

This is the reality parents face, says Kate McInturff, a researcher on the study. Its a confirmation of what most parents know from their own experience.

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Quebecs $7-a-day fixed fee for daycare puts the four Quebec cities in the studyat the top of the list for affordability. Daycare fees rise to $7.50 a day in Quebec at the end of the year, but the provincewide program has led to a sharp increase in womens participation in the workforce.

Daycare and economic security

Gatineau, Que., rises to the top of the affordability ranking because women there tend to have well-paid jobs in the civil service.

Quebec families have improved economic security because of the daycare program, McInturff said.

The study also found that, in general, daycare becomes moreaffordable and more available as children get older, with infant care (for children under 18 months) much more expensive than care forpreschoolers aged three to five.

Toronto has the most expensive child-care costs, at $1,676 a month for infants under 18 months, $1,324 for toddlers and $998 for preschoolers.

Although fees in Brampton are lower than those in Toronto, incomes there are much lower, so that 36 per cent of a womans income, or the equivalent of four months of work, goes to daycare fees.

Toronto, London, Ont.,Windsor, Ont., and Surrey, B.C., are close behind Brampton in being relatively unaffordable.

The study points to a Statistics Canada finding that 49 per cent of women in Alberta who worked part-time said they opted for part-time work because they couldnt afford childcare.

Subsidies vs. incomesplitting

If we want to remove barriers to economic security for women so they have equal access to paid work, what we need is a federal subsidy for child care, McInturff added.

In advocating a federal subsidy,McInturff says she is not endorsing the NDPplan for federal child-care support so that no family pays more than $15 a day. But she saysincomesplitting, the tax incentive being implemented by the Harper government, is a poor alternative to government support for childcare.

In every other country where theyve implemented incomesplitting, weve seen womens participation in the workforce goes down, but mens doesnt go up, she said.

You get a smaller labour force, which isnt good for economic growth, she added.

McInturffpointedout that most Canadian women are working, so parents end up paying the fees because they have no alternative, and people shouldn't believe that a daycare subsidy is going to change their choices.

But despite the high concentration of mothers who work, Canada ranks second last in theOECDin government spending on early childhood education and care.Parent Trap co-author Martha Friendly

Weve got to move past the idea that restructuring child care is going to change choices by parents who dont need it, she said.

The study points out that Canada spends less on early childhood education and care than mostOECDcountries, although a large proportion of Canadian families have both parents in the workplace.

More than three-quarters of mothers with children under the age of six are part of Canadas labour force, said Martha Friendly, co-author of the report, in a news release.

But despite the high concentration of mothers who work, Canada ranks second last in theOECDin government spending on early childhood education and care, she said.