 (PS079) 
January 18, 2010
Myths about Childcare SubsidiesThe facts on daycare
 Subsidizing childcare has become one of the most controversial items on the Canadian policy agenda in recent years. The increased prominence of childcare as a political issue was brought about by a concerted advocacy campaign by those who believe a dramatic increase in childcare participation has the potential to bring a wide variety of benefits to Canadian society including superior academic performance and long-term increases in productivity.A close examination of the research literature in this area reveals that these exciting promises of huge returns on childcare spending are built upon a shaky empirical foundation. A growing body of evidence suggests that for most children, the effects of most childcare interventions are extremely short lived and fade out almost entirely in only a few years. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that the long-term benefits of childcare that do exist are concentrated almost entirely among poor children, a fact that argues in favour of targeted subsidization rather than expensive universal programs. In addition to this ambiguity surrounding the purported long-term benefits of childcare subsidization, a growing body of literature suggests that lengthy periods of exposure to formal childcare may actually have a negative effect on child development, particularly in terms of social development and health outcomes.
In light of these complications, the confident claims of childcare advocates concerning the benefits of large-scale spending on universally subsidized childcare do not square with the ambiguous research literature in this complicated area of social science. This backgrounder will examine these ambiguities and demonstrate that massive spending on universal childcare subsidization is likely not the long-term social and economic panacea some activists suggest it is.
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is Assistant Research Director and Senior Policy Analyst at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Ben holds a Masters Degree in Public Policy from the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance. Since joining Frontier in 2009, Ben has completed major research papers on a wide variety of policy issues. He has authored papers on early childhood education policy, university tuition policy and Canadian fiscal federalism, among other topics. He is the lead researcher for Frontier’s two major inter-jurisdictional comparisons of healthcare system performance. Ben has co-authored a number of policy studies about environmental policy with Dr. Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute. Ben has presented the findings of his research in dozens of radio and television interviews, and his op-ed commentaries have been published in the National Post as well as in major regional newspapers including the Winnipeg Free Press, the Calgary Herald, The Gazette and the Toronto Sun.
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Ben Eisen 
