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Free pre-school childcare 'would generate €3.9bn from employment', study finds
09/08/2021
NURSERY schools free of charge for children from birth to age three would generate employment worth €3.9 billion, according to recent research by Spain's 'open university', the UNED.
Pupils start school in Spain at age three, and although many town councils have publicly-funded nursery schools, all of which take children practically from the day they are born if necessary, places are often very limited – and with maternity and paternity leave at 16 weeks starting from birth, parents who need to work full-time often spend a huge chunk of their wages on childcare in the daytime.
The costs
Based upon a standard 40-hour week and on maternity and paternity leave being the same length of time, the UNED says the cost of nursery education from the cradle to starting school at three would be between €5.4bn and €7.5bn per year, working on the assumption that every parent would put their child in nursery from babyhood onwards, as a 'most-expensive-case scenario'.
But given that a network of State-funded pre-school places already exists, the actual additional cost would be around €2.9bn to €4.9bn – not taking into account those parents who do not need or want to use the service, because they have family willing to babysit, their working hours are already flexible enough, or they can afford to take the first year or two off to be a stay-at-home caregiver.
The financial benefits
This would be offset by taxes paid by parents able to work rather than being forced to stay at home because childcare costs as much, nearly as much or more than they earn, and also by taxes paid by professionals attending to the toddlers, with an additional saving in jobseekers' allowance where both situations take people off the dole.
Professor Cristina Castellanos Serrano, who teaches Applied Economics at the UNED, and economist Dr Ana Carolina Perondi, were commissioned to carry out a feasibility study on whether 'high-quality universally-available free nursery education' would generate a 'positive socio-economic impact'.
“I've spent years studying the financial, social and legal feasibility of reforming the parental leave system,” explains Professor Castellanos.
“María Pazos was, at the time, leading public policy and gender equality research at the Institute of Fiscal Studies, part of the treasury, and proposed examining the economic viability of, on the one hand, free pre-school education, and on the other, free care services for dependants, available to everyone, with a view to creating a system that truly offered people access to quality service and which ran along the same lines as the healthcare system, which is also universal and free at the point of access.”
Indirect benefits would come from more women being actively involved in the job market, and which would generate income for the State of between €1.8bn and €6.2bn, meaning that the total cost of this universal system – between €5.7bn and €10.1bn, not taking into account the fact that some of this is already being spent on the service where it is available – would, at the very least, break even, and possibly result in a profit to the public coffers.
The social benefits
But Professor Castellanos stresses that the State would not just gain in pure numbers and finances: Social, educational, child welfare, gender equality and equal opportunities across the board would result, and would be very significant.
Children who attend nursery, even for just a couple of mornings a week, have long been found to have gained a head-start on their education, and various research into attachment and controlled experiments have shown that those who spend at least a few hours a day at pre-school centres find it easier to socialise, especially with their own age group, and are often more independent, creative and resourceful.
Plus, nursery education means the transition to mainstream school comes as a less traumatic experience for the child – and for the parents, who may find it hard to be away from their little ones after being with them round the clock for the first three years.
Gender equality
Statistically, women are overwhelmingly more likely to take on care duties, for dependants and children, for various reasons – one is that tradition dies hard and it will take several generations before the centuries-old rôles of men as breadwinners and women as carers becomes exactly 50-50; another is that, as it is women who give birth and breast-feed, they get into a 'habit' of being the main caregiver and couples, including all-female couples, tend to slide naturally into a situation of one being more hands-on and another focusing on earning; and in the case of dependants, specifically the elderly, it is always more appropriate for personal care to be provided by the same gender, meaning that as women tend to live longer, female carers will automatically be higher in number.
Also, at present in Spain, only women are able to choose to be single parents – surrogacy is illegal, meaning a man without a partner cannot become a single dad, and in the case of same-sex couples, only women can have a biological child; male couples' sole option is to adopt, which can be a long and difficult process and there is no guarantee they will be given a newborn baby, so they would need to be willing and able to handle any 'baggage' that may have damaged an older child looking for a permanent home.
The result, according to Professor Castellanos and her team, is that women are, necessarily, more likely to be at a disadvantage in terms of work – employers must, legally, provide parental leave, flexible hours or part-time hours for care duties upon request, but the first of these is unpaid and the third of these automatically comes with a salary reduction.
Additionally, those who take time off for caring for children or elderly relatives, particularly if their profession is 'sensitive' to rapid development and very dynamic, may find themselves 'out of the loop' when they are able to return to work in full, hindering them in getting an equivalent level of job.
This also precludes them from taking on intense, highly-responsible jobs which require their full mental and physical energy, long hours and constant availability – if this is what they want out of life – meaning corporate and political leadership rôles, which have only been available to women at all in recent decades, will continue to be moulded to male rather than female management styles and the essential 50-50 input to achieve balance will remain stifled.
By law, of course, like anywhere else in Europe, no profession is barred to either sex – Spain's government has more female than male ministers - other than in certain special circumstances where gender is crucial, like working for a women's refuge or a care job at a disabled men's shelter. But free childcare and elderly or dependant care would remove a major barrier – or, at least, offer more of a choice.
Encouraging childbirth
Also, availability of universal childcare at no extra cost, allowing parents to continue working the same hours as before the birth, might encourage more of the population to become parents in the first place, or to increase their family size where they only have one child.
This is becoming critical in Spain, since its birth rate is one of the lowest in Europe, which could have implications for pension payments and essential service availability for the next few generations.
Latest official figures have shown that approximately 70% of women aged 35 do not have children, even if they would like to; a large percentage of women with one child would like to have more, and that one in five first-time mums is aged over 40.
The upside of this for Spain's economy is that its network of high-quality fertility clinics is very wide, options are very flexible, prices are internationally competitive, and they attract a large number of would-be parents from abroad.
Related Topics
NURSERY schools free of charge for children from birth to age three would generate employment worth €3.9 billion, according to recent research by Spain's 'open university', the UNED.
Pupils start school in Spain at age three, and although many town councils have publicly-funded nursery schools, all of which take children practically from the day they are born if necessary, places are often very limited – and with maternity and paternity leave at 16 weeks starting from birth, parents who need to work full-time often spend a huge chunk of their wages on childcare in the daytime.
The costs
Based upon a standard 40-hour week and on maternity and paternity leave being the same length of time, the UNED says the cost of nursery education from the cradle to starting school at three would be between €5.4bn and €7.5bn per year, working on the assumption that every parent would put their child in nursery from babyhood onwards, as a 'most-expensive-case scenario'.
But given that a network of State-funded pre-school places already exists, the actual additional cost would be around €2.9bn to €4.9bn – not taking into account those parents who do not need or want to use the service, because they have family willing to babysit, their working hours are already flexible enough, or they can afford to take the first year or two off to be a stay-at-home caregiver.
The financial benefits
This would be offset by taxes paid by parents able to work rather than being forced to stay at home because childcare costs as much, nearly as much or more than they earn, and also by taxes paid by professionals attending to the toddlers, with an additional saving in jobseekers' allowance where both situations take people off the dole.
Professor Cristina Castellanos Serrano, who teaches Applied Economics at the UNED, and economist Dr Ana Carolina Perondi, were commissioned to carry out a feasibility study on whether 'high-quality universally-available free nursery education' would generate a 'positive socio-economic impact'.
“I've spent years studying the financial, social and legal feasibility of reforming the parental leave system,” explains Professor Castellanos.
“María Pazos was, at the time, leading public policy and gender equality research at the Institute of Fiscal Studies, part of the treasury, and proposed examining the economic viability of, on the one hand, free pre-school education, and on the other, free care services for dependants, available to everyone, with a view to creating a system that truly offered people access to quality service and which ran along the same lines as the healthcare system, which is also universal and free at the point of access.”
Indirect benefits would come from more women being actively involved in the job market, and which would generate income for the State of between €1.8bn and €6.2bn, meaning that the total cost of this universal system – between €5.7bn and €10.1bn, not taking into account the fact that some of this is already being spent on the service where it is available – would, at the very least, break even, and possibly result in a profit to the public coffers.
The social benefits
But Professor Castellanos stresses that the State would not just gain in pure numbers and finances: Social, educational, child welfare, gender equality and equal opportunities across the board would result, and would be very significant.
Children who attend nursery, even for just a couple of mornings a week, have long been found to have gained a head-start on their education, and various research into attachment and controlled experiments have shown that those who spend at least a few hours a day at pre-school centres find it easier to socialise, especially with their own age group, and are often more independent, creative and resourceful.
Plus, nursery education means the transition to mainstream school comes as a less traumatic experience for the child – and for the parents, who may find it hard to be away from their little ones after being with them round the clock for the first three years.
Gender equality
Statistically, women are overwhelmingly more likely to take on care duties, for dependants and children, for various reasons – one is that tradition dies hard and it will take several generations before the centuries-old rôles of men as breadwinners and women as carers becomes exactly 50-50; another is that, as it is women who give birth and breast-feed, they get into a 'habit' of being the main caregiver and couples, including all-female couples, tend to slide naturally into a situation of one being more hands-on and another focusing on earning; and in the case of dependants, specifically the elderly, it is always more appropriate for personal care to be provided by the same gender, meaning that as women tend to live longer, female carers will automatically be higher in number.
Also, at present in Spain, only women are able to choose to be single parents – surrogacy is illegal, meaning a man without a partner cannot become a single dad, and in the case of same-sex couples, only women can have a biological child; male couples' sole option is to adopt, which can be a long and difficult process and there is no guarantee they will be given a newborn baby, so they would need to be willing and able to handle any 'baggage' that may have damaged an older child looking for a permanent home.
The result, according to Professor Castellanos and her team, is that women are, necessarily, more likely to be at a disadvantage in terms of work – employers must, legally, provide parental leave, flexible hours or part-time hours for care duties upon request, but the first of these is unpaid and the third of these automatically comes with a salary reduction.
Additionally, those who take time off for caring for children or elderly relatives, particularly if their profession is 'sensitive' to rapid development and very dynamic, may find themselves 'out of the loop' when they are able to return to work in full, hindering them in getting an equivalent level of job.
This also precludes them from taking on intense, highly-responsible jobs which require their full mental and physical energy, long hours and constant availability – if this is what they want out of life – meaning corporate and political leadership rôles, which have only been available to women at all in recent decades, will continue to be moulded to male rather than female management styles and the essential 50-50 input to achieve balance will remain stifled.
By law, of course, like anywhere else in Europe, no profession is barred to either sex – Spain's government has more female than male ministers - other than in certain special circumstances where gender is crucial, like working for a women's refuge or a care job at a disabled men's shelter. But free childcare and elderly or dependant care would remove a major barrier – or, at least, offer more of a choice.
Encouraging childbirth
Also, availability of universal childcare at no extra cost, allowing parents to continue working the same hours as before the birth, might encourage more of the population to become parents in the first place, or to increase their family size where they only have one child.
This is becoming critical in Spain, since its birth rate is one of the lowest in Europe, which could have implications for pension payments and essential service availability for the next few generations.
Latest official figures have shown that approximately 70% of women aged 35 do not have children, even if they would like to; a large percentage of women with one child would like to have more, and that one in five first-time mums is aged over 40.
The upside of this for Spain's economy is that its network of high-quality fertility clinics is very wide, options are very flexible, prices are internationally competitive, and they attract a large number of would-be parents from abroad.
Related Topics
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