Government Childcare Centers for Working Parents - Research Paper Example

?Government Child Care Centers for Working Parents Roseline Cange Education Simmons 9th November Government Child Care Centers for Working Parents The industry of child-care has a lot of influence on the economy of any country. On one hand, child-care centers are potential places for employment and on the other hand, they save time for workers in other sectors of economy. Early child care and education has threatened many parents to miss their jobs because of the attention children demand. Some governments have provided funding for child-care centers in the past but funding has fallen short of the demand that is raised by the growing number of children (MacGillvary and Lucia 6). There have been developed child-care centers that are privately owned, which have risen to save the situation. However, some of these child-care centers are not offering quality services to the children who attend them. Quality child-care should be a responsive process that offers developmentally suitable atmosphere for little children (Cooperative Extension, University of California (a) 1). Many of children around the world are not getting appropriate child-care opportunities for preschool sessions. However, many of those who attend the preschool are given poor services that sometimes are harmful to the children. The government ought to venture in to funding of these programs that will empower the young children. In the US, funding is varied in different programs that are designed to offer child-care. These programs are independent from each other in the way they carry out their care to children (Barnett and Hustedt 2). Child-care industries have boosted economies of many countries. They contribute to the revenue through taxation and by offering jobs to citizens of a country. In US, government subsidies are given to parents that are needy and to some parents the US government offers tax credits (Barnett and Hustedt 5-6). There is a major divide between governments regarding who should take responsibility of child care. For example, while some governments say that parents are the ones responsible for child-care, some other governments argue that child-care is a public affair that is the responsibility of the government (Hein and Cassirer 37-39). The effort put by some government is acknowledgeable and there is more that is still needed to facilitate productivity of employed parents. This is a reflective assignment that is seeking to express the two sides of government involvement in providing child care centers to working parents. Child-care is an expensive venture that does not only involve monetary, but also time, concern and energy. The burden of child-care can outweigh the parent if they are left alone to deal with children and still be economically productive. Children are attended by nuclear families when they cannot access the payable child-care centers fees (Bane et al 52-53). Economy has provided constraints that have forced many employees to spend more time and energy to any economic projects they are engaged in. In cases of interruptions, employees incur much loses as a result of wasted time. Companies that have employed those workers lose a lot of revenue on those employees. In that case, even the government experiences reduction in income because they will be entitled to less tax because of reduced productivity of an organization or company. In many countries, working parents are not usually entitled to any child-care services from the government. By the end of the year 2010, the only countries that were nearly giving their working people entitlement to child care are France and Hungary. These countries have high quality health services and other services related to children treatment (Hein and Cassirer 39). According to Cooperative Extension, University of California (b. 2-3), child-care is very expensive for low income earners in US. For example, the lowest charges for a year child care services for only one child was more than a third of annual income of a person who earns an annual pay of US$15,000. This has created a need for the government to put into considerations some of the issues that face such constrains. Government involvement in alleviating this pressure on average income parents can be achieved in various ways. The question of which party that is responsible is still common. Cooperative Extension, University of California (a) poses this question in a more explicit way. Who is accountable for excellent child care? Is excellent child care the duty of the relatives of small children, or the duty of the schools? Is excellent child care the duty of the library attendants and shopkeepers who watch little children coming to their homes as a safe refuge after school? Is reacheable child care the duty of the human resources executives in large companies with a high proportion of parents? High-quality child care services are a societal concern and a society duty. (3) Some private child-care service providers are unfriendly to children and their parents. These are termed as so because of the possibility of unfairly expensive services offered at those centers and the level of security children are kept. Some parents are discouraged by these factors and hence prefer to care for their children themselves rather than give their children to these child-care centers. This was experienced in Canada where employed mothers opted to take care of their children rather than giving them to child-care centers. The cost of keeping a child in a daycare center is estimated to be $6,300 per year in Canada, $9,600 in Toronto and $11,600 in Quebec. These are prices that may not be affordable to middle or low income earner within these regions (Montreal Economic Institute 2-3). Photo by Jenifer MacGillvary and Laurel Lucia, Economic Impacts of Early Care and Education in California 2011. : Activities of a child care center. A country government can directly supply services to working parents by creating child-care centers. Alternatively, a government can give subsidies to organizations that conduct child-care services. The government can contribute to reduction of citizens spending on child-care services by directly subsidizing services to parents who access them (Goulet 138). There is importance that is tagged to government involvement in childcare services. There are many children, for instance, who risk living poor lives if government intervention is not implemented. There are working parents who are unwilling to leave their children in unsafe environment. The only remedy for such parents can be government child-care centers that are accessible, safe and cheaper compared to private health care centers. Although in the recent past governments in many countries have increased resources toward child-care, the demand for services has left just little impact to the employed parent (House of Commons 3-4). In some countries, governments have formulated laws that demand companies to provide childcare equipments and centers for women with little children. This is targeted to ensure that children get attention of their mothers whenever they need them. These laws are made because of importance of breastfeeding. Examples of these countries include India, Chile and Brazil. Therefore, if some government can influence construction of child-care centers in company premises, they are also required to create such places for their employees (Hein and Cassirer 53-55). Government ought to encourage child-care because it has many advantages. One of the advantages is that it reduces absenteeism. Another advantage for creating child-care centers by the government is that it cuts turnover and increases company value. These are boosters for economy development because they increase average per hour productivity of workers (Shellenback 1). Bane et al (55) notes that child-care costs rise with decreasing age of the children. They note that there are issues of program formulation and financing of children aged three years and below. For children within this age, they are considered to require a lot of attention from care givers. However, these authors note that although these child-care classes are not common, many children go through them. There are issues that are related to economy, which the government ought to put in to consideration. Although there have been efforts from many governments to take full charge of the child-care in some countries, there are still some countries that require more work to be done about their commitment to child-care. Some countries have come up with legislation to guide the treatment of women who have young children and are working within those companies to develop child-care centers. Some countries have put subsidy on these services by subsidizing the activities of private child-care centers that serve people but still many women do not use these services. The safety of the environment in which a parent leaves a child is a crucial determiner of acceptability of services. For such reasons, governments should invest directly to constructing child-care centers where parents will be confident to leave their children. Works Cited Bane, Mary., Lein, Laura., O'Donnel, Lydiah., Stueve, Ann and Wells, Barbabara. “Child-care Arrangement of Working Parents.” Webspace, Web. 9th Nov. 2012. Barnett, Steven and Hustedt, Jason. “Improving Public Financing for Early Learning Programs.” Nieer, Web. 9th Nov. 2012 Goulet, H'el'ene. “Child Care in OECD Countries.” OECD, Web. 9th Nov. 2012 Hein, Catherine and Cassirer, Naomi. “Workplace solutions for childcare.” Ilo, 2010 Web. 9th Nov. 2012 House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee, “Childcare for Working Parents.” 2003 Web. 9th Nov. 2012 MacGillvary, Jenifer and Lucia, Laurel. “Economic Impacts of Early Care and Education in California.” Labor Center, 2011 Web. 9th Nov. 2012. Montreal Economic Institute. “$7-A-Day Childcare: Are Parents Getting What They Need?” Montreal Economic Institute, Web. 9th Nov. 2012 North Carolina State University (b). “Life Skills Winter2000/2001 Volume 1, Number 4” North Carolina State University, Web. 9th Nov. 2012 North Carolina State University (a). “Quality Child Care: What does it really mean?” North Carolina State University, Web. 9th Nov. 2012 Shellenback, Karen. “Child Care & Parent Productivity: Making the Business Case.” CCE, 2004. Web. 9th Nov. 2012 Read More