Here’s a quick summary of some key conclusions from my new study published by IRPP today – Early Learning and Child Care in Canada: Where Have We Come From, Where Are We Going?
There were a lot more licensed child care spaces in 2019 than there were in 1986 — 7 times as many — serving a fairly stable number of children.
Children in centre care
Positive
The popularity and acceptance of licensed centre-based child care has increased dramatically. Back in the early 1980s, only about 10% of preschool children of employed mothers used centre care, 40% were in informal paid care and about 50% were cared for by family members. In 2019, about half of preschool children of employed parents were in centre care, 20% in paid family child care and 30% cared for by family members.
Full-day kindergarten
Positive
Kindergarten in public schools has moved from mostly half-days during the school year for 5-year-olds to being widely available for full schooldays to 4- and 5-year-olds.
Mothers in the workforce
Positive
Labour force participation of mothers has increased substantially since 1986. For instance, in 1986 the labour force participation rate for mothers with the youngest child 3 to 5 years of age was 62%. Now, it is 78%. This is still below rates in Quebec or for mothers with older children.
Child care fees
Negative
Child care fees have risen substantially over the period from the mid-1980s. In fact, using preschool fees as the marker and adjusting for inflation, typical child care centre fees are over $3,000 more expensive in Ontario, Alberta and Nova Scotia, and more than $2,000 more expensive in British Columbia and New Brunswick. Quebec and Manitoba have been notable exceptions.
Staff-child ratios
Mixed
In most provinces and territories, legislated staff-child ratios for centre care have not changed very much since 1986. Quebec’s staff-child ratios for children younger than 3 years are the worst across jurisdictions. The only province or territory to have gotten pretty consistently worse in staff-child ratios from 1986 to 2019 is Alberta.
Funding for low-income families
Mixed
Funding of child care services across Canada has changed dramatically over the years. Back in 1986, the main federal funding instrument was the Canada Assistance Plan, which funded child care subsidies. All provinces and territories had child care subsidy payment systems targeting lower-income families and children. More than half of all child care funding came in the form of subsidies — often much more than half. Nowadays, Quebec no longer has a child care subsidy program of this type. In other provinces and territories, child care subsidies now comprise about 40% of total funding. However, there were approximately twice as many children receiving low-income child care subsidies in 2019 as in 1986 (176,738 compared to approximately 82,000)
Funding for operators
Positive
Direct operational funding to licensed/regulated child care services — to lower fees, to raise wages, to improve quality — was in 2019 a very substantial proportion of all funding. It was nearly 100% of Quebec’s funding, and 50% on average in other provinces and territories.
Child care expenses deduction
Positive
The Child Care Expenses Deduction allows earners to deduct work-related child care expenses from income before taxes are assessed. In 1986, the claimable limit was $2,000 per child. Now, limits are $8,000 annually for children 0 to 6 and $5,000 annually for children 7 to 15 years.
Maternity and parental benefits
Positive
Parental benefits have changed very dramatically since 1986. There were no legislated parental benefits at that time, only 15 weeks of maternity benefits under Unemployment Insurance. Now, Quebec and the rest of Canada have different maternity and parental benefit schemes, offering different levels of income replacement and different amounts of benefits reserved for the non-birthing parent. The total length of benefits — maternity, parental, paternity — can exceed a year, and can now include self-employed parents.
Child care educator wages
Mixed
Child care staff were poorly paid in 1986 and they are still poorly paid. Data on child care workers’ compensation are sketchy, but the evidence suggests that child care wages have improved and that wage enhancement grants in various provinces and territories have had some effect. But the picture is uneven. In some of Canada’s largest provinces, where the bulk of child care educators are located, and compared with the average hourly earnings of other workers, the movement in wages over time has been small.
Federal child benefits
Positive
Federal child benefits are, without doubt, larger than they were in 1986. These benefits provide between $5,000 and $7,000 per child (depending on age) to families with low incomes and some amount of child benefits to nearly all families. These benefits have had an impact on child poverty and are a very significant boost to income for families with very low incomes.
The federal budget puts forward very substantial amounts of money for early learning and child care – $30 Billion over 5 years, or more importantly $8.3 Billion of new federal money in perpetuity from 2025-26 onwards. The federal template calls for a cut of 50% in parent fees by the end of 2022, and an average fee of $10 a day for children 0-5 years of age across Canada (outside Quebec) by 2025-26.
How much more child care capacity will Ontario need? It’s an important question. Ontario will need to plan a very rapid expansion of capacity, but do it wisely so that the new child care capacity offers good quality services and is created where it is most needed.
The bottom-line conclusion from the rough calculation below is that when we lower parent fees dramatically in Ontario, we will have a very substantial number of children wanting to use licensed child care. We are likely to need about 200,000 new spaces if parent fees are cut by 50% and we will need about 300,000 spaces if parent fees are reduced to $10 a day (similar to Quebec).
TABLE 1 Children, Spaces, and Need for Child Care Capacity in Ontario
# of children in ON
Current # of spaces in centres and home child care ( 2019 -20 est.)
Total # of licensed spaces needed to match Quebec take-up rates
Est. # of licensed spaces needed if fee cut by 50%
Children in ON with mothers in labour force
Infant (0-18 months)
201,900
14,800
70,300
24,400
Toddler (18-30 months)
135,600
51,000
89,300
84,200
Preschool (30 – 48 months)
278,900
120,000
203,500
198,200
Kindergarten (48–72 months)
286,500
111,900
236,900
184,800
Total for 0-5 years
902,900
297,600
600,000
491,600
545,000*
Notes: Numbers are rounded to nearest 100. Numbers for preschoolers have been corrected. * Number of children 1-5 years with mothers in labour force is 466,100. The number of children 0-5 years of age currently using any form of non-parental child care is about 475,000.
Table 1 gives the numbers. It tells us how many children in each of the traditional age groupings (infant, toddler, preschool and kindergarten) there are in Ontario. It tells us the estimated number of centre-based plus home child care spaces currently available[1]. It tells us how many spaces would be needed in each of these age groupings in Ontario if our child care take-up rates were the same as those in Quebec. In the next column, we show a rough calculation of how many licensed spaces would be needed if parent fees are cut by 50% (this is supposed to happen by the end of 2022). The final column shows us, for reference, how many children in Ontario currently have mothers in the labour force (and might therefore switch into licensed child care from some other arrangement).
We are likely to need about 200,000 new spaces if parent fees are cut by 50% and we will need about 300,000 spaces if parent fees are reduced to $10 a day. This calculation ignores any increase in the use of school aged child care for children in Grade 1 and above (which we should expect). It also ignores any decisions by parents to use infant care in order to get around waiting lists for services for older children.
If we take the rough estimates of demand when parent fees are cut by 50%, these imply that we will need nearly 10,000 more infant spaces, 33,000 more toddler spaces, 78,200 more preschool spaces and 73,000 additional kindergarten spaces by the end of 2022 to avoid facing shortages of child care supply.
The shortage of trained ECEs will be a very significant constraint on expansion as well. Already there are substantial shortages of Registered Early Childhood Educators. For a very rough calculation, we might assume (based on calculations in Appendix B of Affordable for All: Making Licensed Child Care Affordable in Ontario) that one new staff member will be needed for every four children in 0-5 year old licensed child care and, varying across ages, about half of these will need to be RECEs. If this were true, Ontario would need about 18,750 new ECEs by the end of 2022 and a total of about 31,250 new ECEs by 2025-26. And this does not account for additional centre supervisors needed.
These calculations have lots of potential policy implications. One is that capital expansion has to proceed very quickly. A second is that the expansion of the trained workforce cannot wait. A third is that there will be excess demand at certain times, so we need to consider how waiting lists and other ways of managing this demand will work. I will explore these and other implications soon.
[1] Currently available means 2019-20 which is before the pandemic. Hopefully, most of these spaces will reopen after the pandemic, but this is uncertain.
Here is the full final report “Affordable for All: Making Licensed Child Care Affordable in Ontario” as submitted to the Ontario Ministry of Education. This report is still being translated into French, so it is possible that page numbers will change in the final version released by the Ontario Government. Those who intend to reference this report in an academic publication should refer back here in a few weeks for the absolutely final version.
