Author: Gordon Cleveland

I'm a economist and Associate Professor Emeritus at the Department of Management, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Canada. My research field is the economics of early childhood education, and I have a special interest in policy design. As you can see on this site, I have written widely on early childhood education over the last 30 years. Most of my winters recently have been spent as an Honorary Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
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Executive Summary to Report for the Ontario Government – Affordable for All

This study seeks to answer the question “What is the best way to improve the affordability of licensed child care for infants, toddlers and preschoolers in Ontario?” It seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of alternative funding and policy options and to recommend steps forward that can dramatically improve child care affordability for families.

Continue reading “Executive Summary to Report for the Ontario Government – Affordable for All”

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Does child care in Canada improve social equality?

Recently, Prof. Bob Brym invited me to join others in exploring the issue of equality in contemporary Canadian society.  The occasion was the inaugural S.D. Clark Symposium on the future of Canadian society.  My topic was to assess how good a job child care is doing in Canada in improving different types of equity – gender, child and family.  I’ve attached my (rather lengthy) notes for the talk.  You should look for the volume based on this Symposium to be published soon by Oxford University Press. It will contain chapters from each of the authors, including my own.

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REPORT on Nonprofit and For-Profit Child Care Centres in Canada

This is the final report of a 3-year project studying nonprofit and for-profit child care centres in Canada, by Gordon Cleveland, Barry Forer, Douglas Hyatt, Christa Japel and Michael Krashinsky.  The focus has been to establish whether and under what conditions nonprofit operation of centres will lead to higher quality services.  The authors use four different data sets to answer the question.  Here is a very brief summary.  And here are a few chosen excerpts from the Final Report.  However, Chapter Two of the report provides a more fulsome summary. The report analyzes data from You Bet I Care! (six provinces and one territory), Grandir en Qualite (Quebec), the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (or ELDEQ; Quebec), and data from the City of Toronto.  It includes a reasonably comprehensive survey of relevant literature and information about nonprofit and for-profit child care in other countries.

You can download a PDF of the Final Report.